


The Basin of Pilate

by Esteliel



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Big Bang Challenge, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hugo's canon level of shippiness, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Madeleine Era, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Scar touching, Toulon Era, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Valjean's return to Toulon, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6998854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For eight long years, Jean Valjean has tried to do good in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, ever aware of the suspicious gaze of Javert. When a letter arrives from an escaped convict who claims to have recognized Madeleine as a former galley-slave, Valjean has no choice but to meet with his blackmailer. Soon, both Valjean and Javert find themselves in a situation they cannot escape, forcing Valjean to relive the suffering of his past, and Javert to doubt his duty for the first time in his life.</p><p><i>When Valjean stood to make his way to the window, pale and sweating, he found the streets busy. Was there a man waiting in the crowd for him even now? Was there someone watching this window, ready to point a finger and cry out </i>Jean-le-Cric<i>?</i><br/><br/><i>With trembling hands he loosened his cravat, feeling as though he was choking on the gloom that seemed to close in on him. Then his eyes spied a darkness in the crowd: the tall, forbidding figure of Inspector Javert, stalking along the street like a shadow come to life, suspicious scowl hidden beneath a worn hat. For a moment, Javert stopped and raised his eyes to the window of the mayor’s office.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not quite sure how to tag this, and I want to apologize for the contradictory tags - is this gen? Is this slash? Obviously I always write these two with my slash goggles on, but what I wanted to do with this story was explore all the parts of Hugo's prose that makes me ship these two, which means that this is about as shippy as the Brick. (Now I think that there are parts of the Brick that are very shippy, so take from that what you will! :D) In any case, this can probably be read just as much as gen than as slash, so - judge for yourself.
> 
> The absolutely [stunning art](http://francu-s.tumblr.com/post/145067498169) was drawn by [Francu](http://francu-s.tumblr.com/), whom I can't thank enough for bringing these two to life in all their glory (or all their suffering)! This has been such a great collaboration and I'm still all overwhelmed by your art!
> 
> And thanks so much to Miss M, who not only betaed this entire story but helped to get me through it with word wars and encouragement, you are the best! <3

The letter had arrived with the other mail; an innocent, pale rectangle, it had been buried beneath orders from Spain and letters from Lafitte. It took him a while to go through his mail. Jean Valjean worked quietly and focused, but even so, half an hour passed until he used a paper knife to slice the letter open.

When he unfolded the paper to peruse its contents, he paled and sat silent and unmoving for a long time while the clock ticked and in the factory below, life went on with all the noise and toil as it had without fail since the building had first started to house M. Madeleine’s workers.

Now it seemed that all life had fled the face of the man who had brought prosperity to the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

At last, when the clock struck nine o’clock, Jean Valjean roused. He lowered the letter onto the desk, slowly, as though the weight of it had pained his arms. Then he took a deep breath and covered his face with his hands. His shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly before he lowered his hands and looked at the wooden crucifix that was the only thing adorning the plain wall.

M. Madeleine, the mayor of the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, who was also Jean Valjean and a former convict, had just received a letter from one who professed to have known him in the bagne of Toulon.

What could be done?

Horror gripped Valjean. The crucifix stared at him in accusation. Below, there was the hum of the workers.

When he stood to make his way to the window, pale and sweating, he found the streets busy. Was there a man waiting in the crowd for him even now? Was there someone watching this window, ready to point a finger and cry out  _ Jean-le-Cric _ ?

With trembling hands he loosened his cravat, feeling as though he was choking on the gloom that seemed to close in on him. Then his eyes spied a darkness in the crowd: the tall, forbidding figure of Inspector Javert, stalking along the street like a shadow come to life, suspicious scowl hidden beneath a worn hat. For a moment, Javert stopped and raised his eyes to the window of the mayor’s office.

Valjean took a step back from the window as though lightning had hit him, tightening the cravat even though his throat was still too tight to breathe. He could hear no sound but the dull, panicked thudding of his heart.

With fast steps, he moved towards where the crucifix hung and cast himself onto his knees. He could not pray. He could only clench his hands and look up in despair at the Savior who looked down at him in turn, and still the guilt and fear within him rose until he had to rise and pace, a caged lion who could see no escape from the bars that had suddenly been raised before him.

Finally, he returned to his desk. His hands trembled again as he reread the letter. He did not touch it, as though he feared that such contact would be enough to give him away, would signal to the sender that Jean Valjean had indeed been found out, that here was a docile milk cow awaiting the blackmailer’s handling.

For that was what the letter had professed. Jean Valjean, who had spent nineteen long years in the bagne of Toulon, was well acquainted with the tricks with which an escaped galley-slave might make a pleasant life for himself. There were the letters to a wealthy man or woman, promising riches lost in the revolution in exchange for gold to find the burial spot of the secret treasure. And of course, there was the occasion when Fate would bring the former convict into contact with one such other unlucky creature, one who had tried to build a life for himself, who might even have been moderately successful, and who was thus ripe for the picking by the villain who had recognized him.

Was he to fall victim to such a trap now? He, Jean Valjean, who had already suffered any thinkable indignity, and who had striven so hard to leave behind this darkness from which he had been pulled into the light?

And yet the bagne seemed like a swamp, grasping at his feet with every step he took, ever eager to draw him back into the morass.

The money meant little to him—and yet, were he to pay, would they not simply milk him for more?

Again a shiver ran through Valjean when he contemplated the foreboding figure of Javert, that hound that always seemed at his heels wherever he went.

No, if even the hint of such an accusation were to be overheard by Javert...

Jean Valjean could see no way out of this trap that had been laid for him.

His gaze fell upon the rifle leaning against the wall. He took it with him on his morning walks—but even the thought of aiming it at another made him recoil.

No. No, rather pay, and pay again and again, and find a way out of this quagmire in time. What use was the money to him? He could not buy a pardon. All he could do was to ease the ills of this town, and hope that by striving to do good, he would eventually leave behind that man who had stolen from a child.

The letter demanded that he meet his blackmailer this evening behind a hut Valjean knew well. It stood outside the walls surrounding the town and had been uninhabited for two years, since the tinker residing there had died of a cough.

It was far enough from the town that they would not be observed. Far enough also that no one would notice were something to go amiss—but what other choice did he have?

To not follow the summons meant chancing that his secret could be revealed to the police at any moment.

Perhaps, had it been anyone but Javert stalking the streets of Montreuil, Valjean might have considered going to the station-house himself, playing out this farce of moral outrage, the trusted and well-loved mayor insulted and threatened by ruffians. Perhaps he could have trusted in his educated speech and refined clothes to keep the veil drawn over the eyes of the police, and the ruffians could have been arrested and sent back to the bagne without even an ounce of doubt cast upon the venerated mayor.

And yet, as long as Javert watched him with a distrust Valjean could ever feel burning in the back of his head, he could not bring the matter to the attention of the police. At the same time, as he was loath to cause harm even to a man intent on blackmail, he saw no other option but to follow along and pay whatever taxes this collector of the bagne might demand.

Valjean returned to his desk, his leg dragging behind as though the chain had already been fastened once more. With his head resting wearily in his hand, he took a locked box out of a drawer of his desk, and, opening it, pulled out several banknotes after a moment of consideration.

To think that the mayor should have to pay for freedom in his own town!

Still, was it not better lodging than what he had found in nineteen longs years in the bagne—the soft bed instead of the planks, his portress's dinner instead of beans, the respectful  _ vous _ instead of that abominable  _ tu _ ? Could one go back to that place after having tasted freedom and respect? Or would not a man in such a situation be even more willing to pay what it took to keep that respectability so desperately yearned for, the mayor's chain instead of the red blouse?

***

For one hour, Valjean sat at his desk, unmoving. At last, when the clock rang ten, he took up the stash of letters once more and began to slowly, mechanically go through orders, bills and inventories.

At noon, when the church bells were ringing outside and the hum of productivity in the factory below quieted and then rose in volume as the workers took a break, Valjean stood and went to the window once more. On any other day, he would have left the building and walked through the streets of Montreuil, handing out coins and toys to the gaggle of children that was certain to follow him. Furthermore, this week his walks had led him unfailingly to the hospital, where even now the woman he had rescued from the station-house, Fantine, lay deathly ill.

Valjean raised his head to the distant church tower. A shudder ran through him as he imagined stepping out into the streets, walking through the bustle of the market place, only for a distant voice to call out “Jean-le-Cric”, or for the long arm of the police to grip him by the collar in plain sight of all those who pulled off their hat and said “Monsieur” when he passed by.

Again he looked at the distant church. The clock tower said ten past noon. In the streets below, a shadow slipped from a corner, and as Valjean watched, the unmistakable figure of Inspector Javert stepped into the street and walked away slowly. Had Javert been waiting for him? Did Javert already know?

Or was not rather Javert still watching and waiting, circling Valjean like the cat watching a mouse hole, waiting just for one false step that would give Valjean away?

Valjean returned to his desk. He wrote a short note: He could not visit the hospital today because of a sudden, urgent business. It would have to do; he could not go outside and make himself even more vulnerable, not with Javert hounding his every step like a dog that had scented blood.

***

Valjean remained at his desk until late in the evening. It was not uncommon for him to be among the last to leave. Still, this time he made certain that he was alone by the time he finally left his office.

He had donned an old workman’s coat and hat that he kept hidden in his office. In his pocket, he carried a coin: a hollowed sou which concealed a small saw. After some deliberation, he ignored the gun in the corner.

It was dark outside. He left by the back exit. Had anyone been watching, in the gloom he might have been taken for one of the workers who had left not too long ago.

Valjean hastened through narrow, empty streets, his shoulders hunched and his hat pulled low to protect him from any observers. The skin of his back itched; several times he stopped behind a corner, carefully looking around, but he could not make out anyone trailing him. In every alcove he passed, he imagined the tall shadow of Javert; every distant sound made him hasten his steps, shuddering as he imagined the breath of that dogged pursuer hot between his shoulder blades.

At last he made it past the ramparts surrounding the town. Beyond lay fields and meadows, now hidden in darkness. The moon was nearly full, and Valjean walked a mile in its light, until a hill rose between him and the town.

Then he took out a small lamp and lit it. It was not far now to the shack. The man he was about to meet had chosen it well. It stood at the bottom of a ravine, where in years long past, blocks of stone had been hewn and transported away. Now, the disused quarry was overgrown and home to rabbits and foxes, the shack leaning near the stony wall abandoned by its former inhabitant.

There was a light shining from the latched window when Valjean finally came closer. Again he hesitated and looked around. In the distance, there was a rustle in the bushes; then, a hoot resounded, and an owl arose with a mouse dangling from its feet.

Valjean shuddered. He raised his eyes to the moon. The wind had picked up.

Jean Valjean was afraid.

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/3nGMtNA.jpg)  


For several years, he had dedicated every waking hour to the betterment of his soul. He had read countless books, treatises and pamphlets, had studied the law in the light of his candle, had built business and wealth and refined his speech and habits until at last, he could walk in the streets and be addressed as “monsieur,” until that ghastly  _ tu _ seemed nothing more than a distant memory, a nightmare from which he had finally awoken.

And now, the nightmare had returned. Darkness had opened its maw, and Jean Valjean had prepared himself to walk right back into the mire from which he had so recently escaped.

He doused his light. He drew the hat over his eyes, and once more felt for the familiar weight of the hollow sou. Then he stepped forward to the shack’s door.

At his first knock, there was silence. Just when he had raised his hand to knock again, the door opened, and before him stood a man with the familiar air of the galley-slave staring at him from narrow, suspicious eyes. Below rose a flat nose that seemed to have born the brunt of a fist a long time ago, dark hair growing in bushels from wide nostrils, still encrusted with the brown remains of snuff.

When they beheld him, those narrow eyes widened, and the man’s mouth parted for a grim smile.

“So it is you,” the convict said. “Jean-le-Cric. A long way from the bagne, he? But we are brothers, yes. And do not brothers recognize each other, wherever they go? Do you not recognize me as well? Come in, Jean, come in and share a glass. How glad I am to find you so well.”

Valjean remained silent. Not even the hint of a shudder ran through him as he contemplated the man who stared at him with crude delight, although he felt as if he had been trapped in a nightmare.

For eight years, he had devoted himself to the betterment of his soul and his habits. And yet, despite that long, exhausting work, here he stood in front of a galley-slave and was effortlessly recognized as one of their own. The  _ monsieur _ that had seemed so sweet to him was gone. Instead, the uncouth  _ tu _ thoughtlessly hurled his way hit with the impact of the cudgel, and it was as if the years of prosperity and peace fell away from him until he looked at the man before him as a mirror, seeing in front of himself not only what he had left behind, but what he would return to.

Without a word, Valjean entered the small shack. No fire had been lit in the old fireplace, but the man had brought a lamp that shed enough light that Valjean could see that the shack was empty except for the ex-convict and himself.

The man’s smile widened. “I could hardly believe it when I saw you. I told myself: let’s look at the mayor, a fine man by all accounts, a rich old cove, they say, whose pockets are filled with francs and who spreads money as he walks through the streets of this little town until the pavement is made of gold coins trampled into the dirt. What a fine old man, what a philanthropist! So I take a good look at this wonder of a man, and then it hits me. I know that man! That’s a face I recognize—only you did not wear such a fine velvet coat then, but the red blouse, and the hat on your head was the red cap, and the golden chain dangling from your waistcoat was a chain of iron, eh? And you were chained to Chenildieu, who was my own chain-mate for two years. Jean-le-Cric, it is truly you.”

Valjean remained silent and immobile, his face like stone. At last, he forced himself to step further into the shack, his steps slow and weary, the left foot dragging as though by his words alone, the man had returned the full weight of the chain to his leg.

"Richelot," Valjean said at last, his voice low.

In the flickering light of the lamp, the man's mouth twisted into a smile.

"So you do know me, Jean. How glad I am to see you so well. Yes, and how glad I am too that you would not forget a brother in need; no, certainly Jean-le-Cric would not forget those less fortunate than him."

"Of course not," Valjean said heavily, barely hearing the words he spoke. In his mind, he saw once more his own rooms: the bed with its clean linen and the soft mattress, the pot of stew his portress brought him, the volumes of books lining his shelves.

"That is well, Jean. I will not stay long, you know how it is. A man needs a job to work, and this town is too small for my likes. Best to get myself to the big village; I have a friend there, and his mother is sweet on those of us in need, oh yes, the kindest woman on earth. But for now I will need food and clothes and a room; you understand that, Jean, you know how it is."

"I do," Valjean said tonelessly. In the flickering light, he reached into his coat to pull out what he had brought.

The man took the banknotes eagerly, then gestured towards the rickety table. "You'll have a drink with me, Jean, won't you? For old time's sake? How nicely you've hoodwinked these coves! But I have a job I am waiting for; oh yes, and you will be kind to your old friend Richelot and tell him of what work you can find. Is there not a baker or a dressmaker with full coffers? What a fine cow you have found us with this town, just ready to be milked!"

Valjean, whose face was still a mask of stone, felt an instinctive shudder of revulsion roll through him, for he knew it was not the town that would be milked, but he himself.

What was to be done? Had he perhaps been wrong in following the letter's summons after all? Would not Madeleine have called for Javert to investigate this shack, and would not Javert, that ever-suspicious dog, have been content to arrest one galley-slave and return him to the bagne, and disregard all else the convict might have let slip?

No. Not Javert.

Once more Valjean thought of a way out, but he could find none.

Perhaps not Javert. Perhaps, if Madeleine were to inform a foreman that there was danger in this shack, a group of his workers would come out with cudgels and drive away the thief... But that thought made him shudder as well, for Javert would become yet more suspicious if such a thing took place without the police being warned of the ex-convict hiding in this shack.

A dram of wine was placed onto the table before him. Valjean stared at it, then took hold of it as though he was not quite certain what to do with it.

“Come, Jean, a drink with me. Or are you not my friend anymore? You haven't forgotten the weight of the chain and the pain of the whip, have you?” Richelot asked and gave him a suspicious look.

Valjean’s tongue was heavy as he answered. “No. I have not.”

“Then drink up, friend. Let us toast all the coin we can divest this town of,” Richelot said, watching with a particular sort of attention.

Valjean stared at the cracked mug in his hand. The wine smelled sour, like vinegar. His stomach twisted, remembering a bowl full of beans. Without speaking, he put the mug down onto the table again without having drunk.

Richelot’s face twisted suddenly. “Then have it your way, Cric!”

At his words, the door opened again and two men came in, a third looking in from the window to bar his escape that way. Valjean was trapped.

The ensuing fight did not last long. Valjean managed to grab the collar of Richelot and pushed him hard against the men who had filtered in from the door with cudgels in their hands—but he never saw the man who had stepped out from a rickety wardrobe, nor did he see him take aim at his head with a wooden plank.

***

Valjean was swimming in darkness. He was in the ocean, deep below the surface, where the full pressure of the water above him tightened around his chest until he thought his ribs would burst and his head would be crushed. He could not see. He could hear the groaning of some sea creature deep below, a frightening sound that spoke of terrible agony. He swam without feeling himself move, an eternity of flight that would yet never save him from the monster that was waiting for him.

When he at last opened his eyes, he found that he had been dreaming. The creature that had been incessantly groaning in pain had been no other than Jean Valjean, now chained in some dark building.

He was alone. There was not much light. The place smelled of dampness and dust and moldy leaves.

After several minutes, his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and he saw that he was entrapped at the center of a large chamber. There was a window through which moonlight fell in, and with that illumination he could see that he was alone. Shackles of iron had been fastened to his wrists and his ankles. His shoulders hurt, for the chains that held his hands bound and kept him upright were fastened to a hook in the ceiling above.

His throat was tight and his tongue swollen. His head ached dully with every throb of his pulse.

He groaned once, then quickly fell silent at the way it echoed through the emptiness.

Where were his jailers? He remembered the meeting now, and the letter.

He remembered also how it had ended: the opening of the door, the men swarming in, their faces a grimace of greed and cruel amusement. And then…

Pain. Blackness.

They had knocked him out and brought him here.

With a groan, he straightened. It ached to move; after hanging in the chains for so long, his shoulders were sore from bearing his weight .

Somewhere in the distance, there was a creaking sound. A moment later, a door opened, and Richelot entered with a lamp in his hand. It shed light onto the room: a disused cellar, maybe, for it was full of dirt and dust and broken boxes, and there were cobwebs in the corner. The window that had allowed moonlight to filter in was small and high up on the wall, below the ceiling.

Could it be one of the houses in the town? The butcher’s old shop that stood empty, after he had moved into a larger house closer to the market? Would Valjean perhaps be able to attract attention if he were to shout?

He shivered instinctively when he imagined Javert rushing into the room: Javert’s eyes on him as he hung before him, bound and helpless, already returned to the miserable state of the chained galley-slave.

No, this had to be a different place. They would not have dragged him back into Montreuil. They would not have been able to enter without attracting attention.

“Ah, you’re awake, Jean.” Richelot placed the lamp on a table. “I apologize for the shabby quarters; you know how it is. You won’t have to spend much time here. All I need is a few answers. And you’ll want to help me, I’m sure. Once you’ve filled my pockets you’ll be free again.”

Valjean closed his eyes against the pain of his headache. He felt dizzy. How long had he been unconscious? Long enough for them to have carried him to wherever this place was.

“I do not know what you mean,” he said with obvious effort. “Have I not treated you well? Have I not given you money enough that you may rent a fine room, buy a good meal, drink good wine?”

“Bah,” Richelot said and came closer. “What good is a handful of banknotes when here we have Rothschild himself? I’ve been here for a while, Jean. Yes, I do my work attentively; I have watched you for a week. The things they tell of you! More money than the devil, and yet what does he spend it on? Beggars, schools, the hospital. They say he has a secret grotto, that saintly mayor, that philanthropist; they say that he must be hiding some terrible secret—well, am I not the devil myself? Should not I too have my part of this secret of yours? For I know well what it has to be: a hidden coffer full of gold, the riches of some unlucky soul you murdered. Is it gold? Is it jewels? Did you come across some diamond trader out on the road at night? The buried treasure of a Marquis? Just tell me, Jean, and we shall be good friends; yes, you shall sleep on silk and velvet once more and together we will enjoy what fortune you have found.”

Valjean remained quiet in his bonds. What was there to say? What was there to do? What money he had was deposited with Lafitte. For a long time now, Jean Valjean had foreseen that danger might follow him, and so provisions were in place that ensured that the sum of six hundred thousand francs was ever at his disposal, ready to be picked up in full at a moment's notice.

Jean Valjean had thus thought to be prepared for the long arm of the law, for the unmasking by shadows like Javert that watched and waited for him to take one false step.

But what to do in such a case? He had not thought of blackmail. His provisions had been made with flight in mind—yet now he was bound, chained as he had been in the bagne, at the mercy of one who had risen from the shadows he had left behind: a terrible, unshaven man who with his uncouth address and rough words forcefully pulled Valjean back into that world of darkness from which he had escaped scant years ago.

“Richelot, I would be your friend,” he said at last, the familiar  _ tu _ heavy on his tongue, making him shudder as in his mind rose the vision of being chained to men like these, laboring next to them day after day, sleeping on his hard planks while men like Richelot spoke the argot of the bagne in rough whispers.

Had he truly thought he could escape from that place? His shoulders ached dully, his wrists burned where the iron manacles gripped him tightly. All his learning had fallen away from him like a dream. Had he truly once thought that he was Madeleine, a man who used his freedom and prosperity to do what good he could?

No. Here, in this dark, dusty room, he was Jean-le-Cric, who had been born in the bagne and would die there, with the days that had been spent in freedom no more than a dimming dream. And yet—was Richelot not the same as he? Did not Richelot too deserve the same compassion he had been shown, a kind hand to someone who had never received anything but violence?

“There is no need for this,” Valjean said quietly, thinking of the man who had once fed him and given him a bed, when his own intentions had been as sinister as Richelot’s. “You are hungry? I will see you fed. You are tired? I will give you a room. There is work in this town; you could live a good life, earn a living, remain free—”

“Work?” Richelot laughed bitterly. “Have I not worked enough for a hundred lifetimes? No. No, the days of toil are over forever. Just tell me where to find the money, Jean, and you shall be free once more, and we shall be good friends.”

Sweat dripped down Valjean’s neck, the linen of his shirt sticking to his damp skin. Should everything be over now, after he had worked so long and so hard? What did it matter whether he gave half his money away? What good would six hundred thousand francs do him in the bagne?

At the same time he could not shake the thoughts of the beds the hospital needed, the schoolmasters who might be paid with such a sum, the children that could be fed. Had not the hand that had given him the silver candlesticks also given him every single coin he had earned after that day? And had he not been tasked to use his life for good? What good would it do to give half the money to Richelot when Valjean knew very well that it would not end in good deeds?

And yet, did not he of all people also know only too well that it was lack, hardship, the absence of even the smallest things that stifled the light in a man’s soul? What right had he to deny Richelot, when he, Jean Valjean, who had robbed a Bishop and a child, had received nothing but mercy and compassion in turn?

“Richelot,” he said, raising his head so that he could look at the man’s face, remembering the light that had shone out of the Bishop’s open door, and how it had seemed to him a glimpse of heaven forever out of his reach. “I will give you a thousand francs. That will see you fed, and with a roof over your head, and give you a chance to leave behind this life of darkness.”

“A thousand francs?” Again, Richelot laughed in bitter disbelief. “Come, Jean, what shall that afford me?”

“An honest life,” Valjean said quietly, and he did not flinch even when Richelot’s hand rose and he was slapped hard enough that he could taste blood on his tongue.

“There’s your payment for that honest life,” Richelot said.

Dazed, Valjean stared at him, the pain of the slap ringing through his head. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but worse was the shock—trembling like a spooked horse, eyes wide, he stared at this man who had raised his hand against him with the same negligent violence with which once the cudgel had been used on him in Toulon. The slap had jolted him, just like the  _ tu _ had smarted on hide that once had been so used to abuse that he had thought it stone. A few years of being called  _ Monsieur _ made both slap and familiarity ache, as though the old wounds had never healed at all.

“I’ll have your treasure; yes, Jean, it is too late for such games,” Richelot threatened hoarsely. “Have you forgotten who I am? Are you trying to play games with Richelot? Let us test your hide then; let us see if a few licks of the lash won’t loosen your tongue.”

There was a fury in Richelot’s eyes now, as though he had been denied something he thought his by rights. His cheeks were flushed a hectic red, and his mouth twisted into a smile that was more grimace. It made Valjean shudder to see such delight. Almost he felt himself returned to the bagne. What was that place that it turned those who suffered into animals who would see the suffering perpetuated wherever they went?

Once more Valjean remembered how he had stood above the sleeping Bishop, and he shivered.

Richelot stepped away to a table at the back of the dusty room. A moment later, there was the sound of a length of leather uncoiled, and this time Valjean flinched, eyes wide with the terrifying memory that had branded itself into his soul.

Again Richelot came close and stepped behind him. He was so close that Valjean could feel his breath against his nape, and then there was the coldness of a blade against his skin. Valjean closed his eyes and spoke a silent prayer.

With a ripping sound, the knife cut into the old shirt he had put on for the clandestine rendezvous. Then Richelot put the knife away and gripped his shirt in both hands to tear it open further, until Valjean felt his back bared to the cold air.

He forced himself to breathe slowly, but almost he smelled the salty air of Toulon already. The dusty walls around him turned into walls he had thought long left behind, walls that had soaked up cries and moans and pleas for centuries, until the men contained within them seemed no more than empty husks and the walls as cold and malevolent as those who had incarcerated and then forgotten them.

Valjean wrapped his fingers around the chains that bound him. He clenched them until his knuckles ached. Unseeing, he stared at the wall before him, chest heaving while every muscle in his body had tensed at being so exposed, the old, pale scars uncovered that he had carefully hidden beneath shirts and coats every moment of the past eight years.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the 26th of March, a Monday, and Javert was in his element. Recently, the chief of police had received note that a suspicious group of men had been sighted on the road that led from Beaurainville to Montreuil-sur-Mer. Inquiries had resulted in hints that these rough-looking men might be responsible for a series of break-ins in Hesdin, brigandage ranging as far north as Boulogne-sur-Mer, and, most importantly, fit the descriptions of men who had escaped the bagne of Toulon, where Javert himself had served as a guard many years ago.

With eagerness, Javert had inhaled what seemed to him the scent of some capital crime to be committed. For a long time now it had seemed to this man—who walked the streets of Montreuil and clothed himself in its shadows, a tall, imposing figure ever on guard—that some great secret kept evading him.

Since his arrival in the prospering town, suspicion had grown and taken root deep within his heart. Javert had been forced to silently observe the rise of a man who continued to evade high society's outstretched hand with the fear and ease of a criminal. Indeed, this man had risen to such lofty heights that he had dared to slap away the honors of the king and state like a churlish child, only to be rewarded at last with the mayor's chain. 

For four years Javert had followed every motion of this man, and yet he had found no final proof of the terrible belief he held in his heart. Not long ago, after an incident concerning a woman of the town, Javert had written to Paris, no longer able to contain the suspicions that had grown within him: for the monstrously strong body of the man reminded him of the convict Jean Valjean, who had once been jailed in the bagne of Toulon.

Now to receive news that a band of galley-slaves had moved into the area only gave further credence to his suspicions. Like attracts like, or so Javert had learned. Where one escaped convict settled, soon there would come others: like maggots in meat, the sight of one showed that the whole cut was spoiled.

Yes, Javert had  known that all it would take was a show of patience to see the man give himself away. Now, like the cat who watches the mouse leave its hole, unaware of the predator's eye, he sat silently and in wait. He needed only hold out until that jubilant moment when the answer from Paris would come, and he could dig his claws into the man who had vexed him for so long.

And perhaps his wait would be over even sooner. Certainly the men who had arrived under the cover of nightfall had to be old comrades of Madeleine's, seeking out the protection of one who had escaped the bagne himself and turned to his old tricks, quietly gathering riches enough to rise in power even to such a position as that of magistrate.

On this morning, Javert had taken position well before dawn. As was his wont, the mayor had arrived not long after, a light shining from the window of his office even before the majority of his workers swarmed through the gates. Before them, a messenger had come and gone. Javert had watched as Madeleine looked out through the window, pale and quiet, ever hiding in the shadows even in the factory that was his own. No, Javert felt it in the core of his being. That man could only be false. No one in such a position would hide and brush away favors and accolades. 

Soon a letter would arrive from Paris, and Javert would uncover the truth, thrust its burning light into the face of this man while pinning him with his claws to watch him writhe in the brightness of justice.

When the church bells rang in the distance, Javert released a breath and at last left his post in the shadows. There was no more information to be gained here; the mayor was holed up in his office like the rat that had gotten wind of the cat, and no progress would be made on this case until the summons from Paris arrived.

Which left the matter of the brigands and galley-slaves.

Two nights past, Javert had spent several hours wrapped in an old blanket in one of the dark corners near the river, listening to the mutterings of men who did their trade in that forsaken part of the town. As in any other town, there were places where the light did not reach, as well as men who did their work in that fetid darkness and would continue to do so, no matter what sermons of nettles the mayor might choose to preach.

Now, when Javert's feet led him back towards those narrow alleys, he thought that he recognized one of the more notorious inhabitants of that realm of shadows, wandering puffed-up through the market of Montreuil. It was Jacques the Tall, who had come to be called by that name despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that he had never grown past the shoulders of other men, and indeed only reached to Javert’s chest. Thin and gangly and clad in a smudged shirt, he alternated between earning his living doing small favors for the pimps and whores who plied their trade with the soldiers and boatmen who traveled on the Canche, and losing it all again in card games as soon as he had won it.

For several minutes, Javert followed him. Clad in his dark greatcoat, Javert stuck to the shadows. Already Jacques seemed inebriated; when he lingered at a stall and finally bought another bottle of wine, Javert’s suspicion grew upon hearing the telltale tinkling of coins in his satchel.

How had the man earned what he was drinking away? The answer to that question kept Javert busy for half the afternoon. Then, finally, Jacques was drunk enough that Javert could overhear his conversation with a woman of the town, who seemed just as suspicious as Javert as to Jacques’ sudden fortune.

“I tell you, it’s true.” Jacques's voice slurred the syllables as he raised his hands in protest. “I have work now, an easy job that pays well. And there’s more to come.”

“What, a job, you? Last time they locked you away for a year,” the woman scoffed.

Javert waited patiently in the shadows, hiding in a dark corner while the quarrel went on.

“This time there won’t be any bars for me. Not for this sort of job. And it’s not me doing the hard work. This morning I carried a letter. That’s all I did. And I got myself this.” 

Again Javert heard the tinkling of coin.

“And he said there’s more swag to come. More for someone who knows the town well, who knows where the mayor takes his walks and—” Abruptly, Jacques fell silent.

Javert had tensed in his corner at the mention of the mayor. The suspicions which had grown in his heart for so many years seemed to blossom, ripe for the harvest. A crime was afoot—and the mayor was at the heart of it. There could be no doubt.

“Right, that’s all I have to say to you,” Jacques said sullenly. “Now do you want my coin?”

Again there was silence. After a while, Javert heard the rustle of clothes, and then the wet slap of flesh. Already, his mind had turned to other things.

A letter, Jacques had said. Had he not seen someone leave Madeleine’s factory early in the morning? Was it possible that a letter had been delivered to the mayor?

Javert’s jaw clenched. His thin lips rose to reveal his teeth, a sight both formidable and frightening: the mask of an animal that had inhaled the scent of its prey.

Something was indeed afoot, and it seemed like the long years of frustrated patience had finally paid out. Escaped galley slaves in the area, a suspicious letter delivered by a known thief—and the mysterious Madeleine in the midst of it all.

Javert’s smile widened. The truth seemed so close now that he could grasp it, the truth that he had so long suspected and written to Paris about, endangering his career: the mayor was Jean Valjean, a convict who had broken his parole, and now that he had grown fat in Montreuil-sur-Mer, his former companions had come to call.

Imagine to not only pin the mouse with his claws, but to smoke out the entire nest of vermin?

A tremor ran through Javert at the thought, and he stopped, right there in the road behind the small market place, to reach into the pocket of his greatcoat and take out the box of snuff. He allowed himself an unusually large pinch, and all those who saw him bend over his hand to inhale the tobacco were taken aback by the smile on his face.

***

Javert waited until night fell. Then, not soon after the town had gone quiet, his patience was rewarded, and he saw a suspicious figure leave the factory. Javert had waited for hours; Madeleine had not left the building. And yet the light in his office had gone out, and the last workers had left long ago. Who then was this mysterious man whose shape was cloaked by an old, worn coat as well as by darkness?

There was no doubt in Javert’s mind that this suspicious figure could only be Jean Valjean.

Javert followed the furtive figure through deserted streets until they reached the ramparts surrounding the town. There, the man ducked out through a gate; Javert was forced to remain in the shadows until the man had walked far enough that Javert could make his way out through the same gate without alerting him.

The fields were quiet. In the distance, Javert could still make out the small shadow that was Jean Valjean, moving silently and quickly with the carefulness of the convict who wanted to escape attention.

Javert kept following, flushed with a strange excitement to have the hunt finally come to a close after so many years. In the pockets of his greatcoat he had hidden irons and a gun. His smile widened with terrible joy when he thought of the final climax that awaited, that moment when he would clasp the shackles around the fugitive's wrists with his own hands and see all lies fall away, the false magistrate brought to justice at last.

Madeleine, who had to be Jean Valjean, led him out past the fields and meadows surrounding Montreuil. Javert kept his distance. Once they made it around a bend in the small path and reached a row of hills past which any light could not be spied from the town, Madeleine lit his lamp. Javert, who had been half afraid that he might lose him should Valjean bolt into the gloom, was reassured once more, the joy that had gathered in a knot of heat inside his chest tightening further with anticipation.

Soon. Very soon now, the mayor would go to his illicit rendezvous, and Javert would be there to observe—and eventually to arrest.

At last, the mayor led him to a small shack. Javert had examined the building once, months ago, when he had suspected a poacher of using it as a hide-away, but his investigation had come to nothing.

Now it was clearly no longer deserted, for Javert could see light spill from the shuttered window. He waited until the door opened and Madeleine went inside, still keeping his distance. Unfortunately,  he had not been able to overhear what was said, nor see whether Madeleine was indeed meeting up with any of the escaped galley-slaves.

While Javert was still debating whether to make his way closer, the sound of voices approaching made him freeze. He pressed himself into a hollow in the side of the small ravine where the hut was located. Bushes were growing here, thorny brambles and flowering elderberries, and they kept him hidden as a group of rough-looking men went past.

Javert’s heart was beating faster with joy. Yes, these were without a doubt the men that had been reported. There were too many of them for him to confront them on his own, but nevertheless, for now it would be enough to overhear their plans. Certainly they planned some great coup: an assault on the bank, perhaps, or the jeweler in Arras. And Madeleine was implicated in it.

All he had to do was wait. Soon they would have Madeleine unmasked as Jean Valjean, and Javert would arrest him in the act, surrounded by the filth that the false mayor had never quite managed to brush off.

Javert did not have to wait long. Even as he watched, there was a sudden altercation, a cry, and the men stormed the shack. Javert’s hands clenched in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. Had the ruffians disagreed on whatever misdeed they were planning?

“Hold him!” one man cried, and then another, “I got him, don’t let him—”

Another cry, the sound of blows and crashing furniture—and then there was silence.

Javert was breathing heavily. Had Madeleine killed one of the villains? He could barely keep still—but certainly he would immediately be seen, should he leave his hiding place now!

A moment later, the door opened once more, light spilling out, and Javert’s fears and questions were finally allayed, although new ones sprang up in their stead. The men he had observed left the shack—but they dragged a bound and unconscious burden with them. It was Madeleine; Javert could see his face clearly in the heartbeat that it was lit by the lamps inside the shack.

What had come to pass? A new mystery had sprung up. Even as he grew more furious at having had his own prey snatched away from under his very nose, Javert felt the hunger for answers grow inside him.

But there was no time for anger. The men hastened past him, the largest carrying Madeleine's motionless form over his shoulder. Javert clenched his teeth to keep back the sound of frustrated rage.

Once more he was reduced to waiting in the shadows until they had passed. Then he took up the trail yet again, following them slowly along the path that led north-east, away from the road that would return them to Montreuil.

***

Javert pressed himself against the dirty wall of the old mill to which the men had brought Madeleine. It had not been used in many years. Now, it seemed, the escaped convicts had found it suitable for their plans, for they had dragged Madeleine inside, and he had not come out again even when the villains did. Javert had counted them: four had left when five had gone inside, carrying the unconscious form of the mayor.

The four brigands had left a while ago—perhaps to return to the shack, Javert thought, or perhaps they had found another lair in the forest to lie in wait for unsuspecting travelers. It would all be dealt with soon enough. They would lead the soldiers against the galley-slaves and make the forest safe once more. But first and foremost on his mind was still the mystery of Madeleine, who was perhaps even at this moment whispering secrets into the ear of the remaining villain.

At the thought, Javert tensed. Who knew what coup would be planned in the old, crumbling mill? And the mayor had managed to win the trust of important people, being offered the Légion d'honneur! It was of the utmost importance that Javert put a stop to their plans.

The door to the old mill was not locked. The brigands had left it slightly ajar. Now it made a soft noise as Javert opened it until he could slip inside, but the room it led to was empty.

The chamber was dusty. Broken boxes and crates and stacks of sacks lined the walls, but neither Valjean nor the remaining villain was to be seen.

After a moment, once Javert’s eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, he saw that there was a door that led to other rooms—and there, to the side, a stair leading both upward as well as down to a dark hole which had to open to the basement.

Javert waited and listened. Except for the creaking of the old mill, he could not make out a sound.

Finally, he heard a dull thump from below. Had the villain hidden the mayor in the basement?

And who knew what else might be hidden there. Perhaps Javert would not only find the mayor, unmasked at last, but also heaps of stolen goods?

Slowly, Javert crept down the stairs, trying to be as silent as possible. In the distance, he could now hear the murmur of voices, and once he had made it into the basement, there was a slight gleam from a door. It had been left ajar, like the door of the mill—the bandits seemed so secure in their hide-out that they had not even taken any precautions to keep others from entering.

Javert smiled grimly. Soon, very soon, this band of murderers would be in for a surprise.

He made it to the door without discovery. When he finally caught a glimpse of the storage room beyond, his lips drew back once more for a silent laugh of great triumph—for there in the center hung the mayor, Madeleine himself, chained like a villain. In front of him stood one of the brigands, holding a lash.

On a table, a lamp had been lit, and so Javert could see well enough what was at stake. Torn between outrage and the growing excitement that soon, he would be proven correct in his suspicions once and for all, Javert watched as the villain raised his hands to the mayor’s dirtied shirt. Then, with a sound that went through Javert like a tremor, the shirt was ripped.

Revealed beneath was the broad back and strong neck, rippling muscles that shifted beneath the skin and gleamed in the light of the lamp—and, most damning of all, the white lines of scars left by the harsh kiss of the lash. They striped the back of the man who had pulled the wool over the eyes of an entire town and reigned as a false magistrate while Javert could only watch in suspicious disgust.

No more, Javert thought, trembling with excitement. No more.

This proved it—and certainly, more would be proven once he found out why the villain had dragged Madeleine here. Was it a quarrel between ex-convicts? Had there been a pact between the galley-slaves; had Madeleine perhaps failed in delivering enough money?

Madeleine was breathing heavily. Javert watched as the powerful body tensed. The flickering light of the lamp shone onto the pale lines, uncovered at last. Javert could not look away, the breathless feeling within him intensifying as the villain stepped back and raised his lash.

“You’ll talk, Jean,” the man said.

The word hit Javert like a blow. His mouth opened, but he could not breathe. Everything in him expanded, his fingers clenching as though he already held Jean Valjean by the lapels; the hot rush of triumph blinded him for one moment—and then the lash fell down. Valjean jerked in his bonds, the strong body arching as a new line of red sprung up on the blemished skin.

Valjean made no sound. Javert watched, rapt, at once disgusted and fascinated by the display before him, for it brought up memories of observing such things in Toulon: the flinching limbs, the stink of sweat and tears, the coarse voices grunting in pain.

And yet, this was not the bagne, and this was not a rightful punishment even though Jean Valjean without a doubt deserved the treatment.

The man who stood behind Valjean was just as villainous, and had certainly felt the bite of the lash on his own skin. Nevertheless, he swung it with force, and Javert watched as the cruel leather bit into Valjean’s skin again and again.

“Come now, Jean. Is it worth it? What good does your money do if they return you to Toulon? Share your luck with me, and remain a free man. That’s all I ask.”

Valjean was panting quietly. He was turned away from Javert, who could not see his face. But what Javert could see was just as telling: the lines of red that had sprung up, covering Valjean’s back with stripes, darker lines standing out where the leather had bitten especially cruelly. Two of the welts had opened; even as Javert watched, a trickle of blood ran down the trembling muscles.

“There’s no need for you to suffer. You’ll tell me in the end, Jean. You know you will.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Valjean said softly.

Javert felt struck anew by a strange, triumphant heat. That was the voice of the magistrate he knew so well—the voice that had said “Leave the room” to him, humiliating him in front of the station-house.

Now that same voice was rough with pain. Moreover, it had dropped all pretension of sophistication.  _ Tu _ , Valjean said, talking to the convict in coarse familiarity. Javert nearly panted with excitement, hearing now for the first time without a doubt the voice of the galley-slave and the voice of the false mayor melded into one, coming out of the same mouth.

“A thousand francs you offer me—me, Richelot, your old friend!” The villain shook his head. In the flickering light, his grimace seemed sinister, as though Madeleine had once made a deal with the devil himself who had now returned to collect his dues.

And was that not true? Here Javert saw one devil with another. 

“Ah, but truth will out,” Javert muttered below his breath. And had not the stink of the bagne clung to Madeleine? Had not Javert’s nose proved true even when Madeleine had deluded the entire town with his perfume of charity and piety?

But where was Madeleine’s piety now, here where he was stripped to the core of his being? All there was to see was the galley-slave hanging in his chains, flinching at the punishment that was his due, bargaining with the devil even now.

“I have no riches hidden away,” Valjean said softly. Although his voice was tight, his body tense as blood kept trickling from a cut, past the valleys and hills of his bunching muscles and flexing tendons, there was a strange calmness in his words.

When Richelot took a step forward, Valjean twisted in his bonds, until Javert could at last see his face.

“There must be a treasure somewhere. Come now, Jean, I only ask for my share. You’ll have enough left to live a good life! Yes--all the wine and fine coats and dinners with electors you might want. You know I'm not unreasonable."

Under Javert's intent gaze, Valjean seemed transfixed. His eyes rose, fixed to some heavenly point beyond the gloomy chamber, and it seemed to Javert all of a sudden that he beheld some greater suffering, some deeper secret beyond all the dark mysteries of this man. A strange light had come to illuminate his face as he trembled, pale and gleaming with sweat. His eyes were wide and luminous, and even now as Javert watched, he could make out a tear fall, a pale line down his cheek with the pure luster of pearl in the shabbiness of the mill's basement.

"I will give you a thousand francs," Valjean said quietly, his voice calm despite his trembling, "and work in my factory. I ask for nothing but that my workers be of good will and probity. I was granted the same grace once, Richelot. I know what it is like. But are we not more than what they made of us in the galleys? With enough food, with a bed of your own and clean clothes and wood for the winter, can you not learn happiness again?"

"A thousand francs," the man called Richelot said. His mouth twisted into a rictus of bitterness; his eyes gleamed with what seemed like malice to Javert in the fire's light, and then he raised his hand with the whip once more.

"You mock me. Yes, you seek to mock me, Jean, and that is all very well. A cove with too much money for his own good--that's what happens, you think you're the mayor now of this fine town, you think your chain of office protects you, you think just because you order around people in your factory everyone else needs to follow your orders as well! But not I, Jean, do you hear me? Have I not seen you lashed in the bagne? Have I not seen you eat your beans and labor with the rest of us? Put on that red cap once more; yes, let us drag you out onto the marketplace in the red blouse. Let us see what they say then, those people who bow and scrape when you pass."

Valjean made a small, pained sound. Javert could barely contain his delight. Impossible to have all of his suspicions proven true so suddenly! And yet, how much more impossible it seemed now that no one but Javert had doubted before!

Here before him, Jean Valjean hung in his chains, returned to his beginnings once more: the gutter from where he came and to which Javert would return him by all rights. Even now with Valjean trembling, pale and silent like a martyr, the elation Javert felt was too great to be moved by the view.

He knew that he needed to put an end to this. He had heard what he needed: the false mayor's identity was finally revealed. But there was nevertheless something almost distasteful to him in the way Valjean suffered: as though it was a display still, meant to implore someone with a softer heart than Javert.

But there was no audience here for Valjean's artful suffering. No gullible soul to be moved to tears by such celestial martyrdom. No, all of Valjean's imploring gazes towards heaven would not avail him, for here stood Saint Michael in the form of Inspector Javert. He could no more be moved by pleas than a stone, and all Valjean's tears did was to soothe the hunger that had eaten at his heart for so many years now, a balm for the guilt with which Javert had flagellated himself for doubting a superior.

No more, he told himself, a silent grin of victory spreading across his face. No more. Now, there was an end to doubt.

Oh, how he would rejoice to see order restored once more, the false mayor in chains of iron, the woman of the streets returned to jail where she belonged, the natural order of things restored, this monstrous doubt once and for all banished from his heart!

Even as Javert waited, contemplating that moment of triumph, Richelot’s whip once more fell down.

This time, the villain struck with all his strength. As Javert watched from the shadows, Jean Valjean convulsed, his lips parting for a choked sound, more tears trailing down his cheeks as the leather tore open his back.

Again Richelot struck. The chains held fast.

In his pain, every muscle in Valjean’s body had tensed, revealing the nearly superhuman strength of the former convict to the eyes of Javert, who stood struck as if by a sudden apparition, staring at the gleaming muscles, the nearly celestial agony displayed before him. 

For a moment, it seemed to him that he was observing a passion play showing he could not say what—the thief crucified by the side of the Savior, perhaps. Yet even as Javert stood transfixed, something in his chest gripped by terror and a strange breathlessness, he could make no sense of this sight, for there could be no repentance in a man like Jean Valjean. No penitent thief this, despite the way Valjean's head tilted towards some unseen figure, his eyes wide and radiant with some unearthly light, rendered sublime by a torment that by all rights should have recalled to Javert the filth of the bagne instead.

Once more the whip came down. Javert saw now that blood had dripped to the floor. Valjean’s face was pale, damp with sweat, and at the next crack of the whip he cried out. The soft, broken sound struck Javert to the bone, at last breaking the hold this tableau of suffering before him had on his mind.

Javert would have preferred to wait. It would have pleased him to apprehend the entire band of thieves and murderers, this nest of galley-slaves who thought to make themselves a lair in this town Javert was tasked to keep orderly. But, he counseled himself, he had what he most desired: the truth revealed about the false mayor. Once the leader of that band of convicts was behind bars, certainly the rest of them would follow soon enough.

Silently, Javert drew the pistol from his pocket. Before him, Richelot had halted once more to survey the work he had done with the whip; Valjean was silent, panting quietly.

 When Javert stepped forward out of the shadows, Valjean’s already pale face lost what color remained. White as a sheet of paper, Valjean looked up at him from the chains in which he hung, his eyes wide with shock and terror.

The sight roused something within Javert; the breathlessness and triumph of having trapped his prey at last forced a rough laugh from his lips. In the silence of the room, the sound echoed. Valjean shuddered, his fearful eyes never leaving Javert’s face.

[](http://i.imgur.com/DewRYgs.jpg)  



	3. Chapter 3

Valjean had been flogged many times during his nineteen long years in Toulon. The bite of the lash was as familiar to his scarred hide and weary bones as the hardness of the planks and the salty air.

Nevertheless, during the eight years that had passed in Montreuil with no hardship save the journey into a burning house or the wrestling with an ox, the memory had dulled. It had revisited him at times, but always at night. At those times, he would wake soaked in sweat, eyes wide in the darkness as he lit a candle with shaking fingers. The memory of the whip tearing open his back would then quickly fade away beneath the crushing relief that he was free, that he was Madeleine, that he had a house and a bed and was called Monsieur in the street, and no one would think to raise a hand against him.

Now he hung in chains of iron once more. Fierce lines of pain flared up on his back with every shaky breath he drew. Sweat ran down his body, dripping into the wounds, and he had to grind his teeth against the ache that drove tears to his eyes.

His tears would not avail him. Neither would pleas. That was an old lesson. Valjean had learned it at the hands of his jailers; his captor, who had once learned the same lesson, would surely heed them as little as their former tormentors had.

Yet even as he prayed voicelessly that he would be granted an escape, he still had hope. That old, indestructible kernel within had grown during the past eight years: like a seed watered by the Bishop, it had become a tender shoot.

Now, as he struggled not to cry out beneath the fall of the whip, he still believed that there had to be a way out, a way that would not harm Richelot. And if he had to give up half of what he had left with Laffitte, would that truly be such a hardship? Was it not also true that he, Jean Valjean, had as little right to those riches as Richelot?

A sudden motion broke through his despairing thoughts. When he forced himself to raise his head, he thought that he beheld a vision from a nightmare, some fever dream conjured by the agony of the punishment.

There, before him, Javert strode out of the gloom, eyes gleaming fiercely beneath his hat and bushy brows, lips raised to show his teeth in the cruel smile of the wolf. In his hand, he held a gun; on his brow shone a halo of triumph, Victory stepping forward with the sword raised high, still dripping blood.

A pained groan fled Valjean’s mouth as he beheld this shadowy portent, for surely that was his own blood he was seeing, Javert piercing his chest with the sword of justice to return him to that miserable place.

A shudder ran through him. His lips moved, but no sound escaped as Javert took another step forward. The gun was raised, those cruel eyes alight with a joy Valjean had never seen before, and then Javert spoke, dashing all of Valjean’s hopes that this was but a vision brought on by the agony.

“What a fine gathering this is!” Javert's smile widened. “But come, Richelot, this is a mill to grind grain. Prisoners we grind in the bagne instead. If it is the taste of the whip you have missed, I shall have you reacquainted with it soon enough!”

Valjean shuddered again, barely able to understand what was happening, although the word _bagne_ had hit him like another fall of the whip.

Then Javert turned his gaze towards him, and where before his eyes had watched from the shadows, day after day, narrow with suspicion, now they were wide and filled with a terrible light.

“Jean Valjean,” Javert said slowly, ever syllable pronounced with a singular delight and gravity. “Yes, it is you.”

More painful than the whip, the shock of that address made Valjean’s body tense in his bonds. _Tu_ , Javert had said with the familiar derision of the convict-guard adressing a galley-slave. Valjean trembled in helpless terror when with that small word, he found himself returned to the torment of Toulon, the chain heavy at his leg, his skin torn and bleeding as men like Javert would stare at him with open contempt .

Once more Valjean prayed silently, daring in his great fear not to address it to the Father who had allowed him eight years of freedom and comfort, but to the Bishop who had first raised him out of darkness and lit a candle to drive away what years of torment had made fester in his soul. Now that the torment had returned in the shape of this man, who looked at him with the fierceness of the tiger and the satisfaction of the dog, his soul pleaded to be spared a return to that terrible state.

He was old now; no longer was he a young man! They called him Father Madeleine, and the children smiled when they saw him; should he now be Jean-le-Cric once more, wearing the green cap, with strangers pointing and finding delight in his suffering?

“No more M. Madeleine.” Javert spoke the words slowly, as if to savor the pleasure of them. “No more will you upset all that is good and right. You’d raise a woman of the town above citizens of good standing? Ah, that is all very well; I had known it then, I had known it since I first saw you dispense your coin as though you had some guilt you carried with you. No moral man would slap away the hand of the king offering the Legion d’honneur; no, only a villain could show such impertinence. But you are not above the king, nor all that is good and proper. And soon enough, we will have you returned to your proper place.”

“Javert.” The word escaped Valjean's mouth neither as plea nor as curse, but with the quiet terror of a man who had spent the night on his knees and now beheld his executioner for the first time.

Javert’s grip on the gun never wavered as he strode a step forward—and then, with a curse, Richelot cracked the whip once more.

From his position behind Valjean, he could not aim well; even so, the leather whipped through the air and knocked the gun out of Javert’s hand.

There was a cry—then, before Javert had a chance to jump for the gun which had skittered across the floor, misfortune drawing it right towards the open trapdoor leading to a deeper level of the mill’s basement, Richelot lashed out again.

This time, his whip wrapped harmlessly around Javert’s torso. Across the room, Valjean saw with dread the gun dropping into the dark hole.

The weapon was gone—and Richelot still had the whip!

Uselessly, Valjean twisted in his chains, but the iron was solid and did not give. Javert was snarling now, his face a mask of affronted hate.

Once more Richelot tried to use the whip to keep the ferocious inspector at a distance—but this third blow Javert had anticipated. As the whip lashed out towards him, Javert was ready. A growl of pain escaped him when it wrapped around his torso again, but now Javert grabbed the leather and gave it a powerful pull.

Richelot was yanked forward. In his surprise, he released the whip so that Javert gave a triumphant laugh.

Again Valjean twisted his wrists, but the iron shackles were tight, and he had barely strength enough left to keep on his feet. Sweat dripped down his neck, the salt burning in the lash marks. His shoulders ached from how they had been forced to carry his weight for so long. Even so, he fought the chains, trying to break free—and trying to keep an eye on both Javert and Richelot. Regardless of who would win this altercation, in the end it would make little difference for him.

Now Javert strode forward, and with a growl, Richelot stepped back. Panting for breath, Valjean kept struggling against the heavy chains. It was work even to turn his bleeding body so he could keep both of them in view. He had not quite succeeded when there was a triumphant cry behind him.

Suddenly, the chains that had held him upright relented with a metallic clank. Richelot must have used the level—and then Valjean groaned, pain exploding in his arms, which had been forced into an unnatural position for so very long. Weakened from the whipping, he could barely keep upright, but even as he stumbled, another body crashed into his.

The agony made him cry out. Darkness threatened to overwhelm him at the pain. Javert made a sound of rage, and Valjean felt hands scrabbling for purchase, raking across his bleeding back—had Richelot used him to barricade the way of the inspector?

Even as Valjean swayed on his feet, another weight crashed into his back, and then they were on the ground, Javert's face close to his, eyes dark with hatred.

There was too much pain for Valjean to find his bearing. His back burned like fire.

As they tumbled across the floor, the pain made him sob. In his ears, he heard Javert's pained grunts—and then there was once more the sound of feet, and they received another mighty push that forced them across an edge, so that they tumbled and fell all of a sudden, darkness swallowing them.

The open trapdoor into which the gun had skidded, Valjean thought in horror, weightless for one terrible moment as they fell.

Then came the impact. Dimly he heard another cry from Javert, before a sudden spike of pain pierced straight through him.

For one moment, everything went away. Valjean floated in welcome darkness. All was silent.

Little by little, sensation returned.

A pulse throbbed. The darkness had a red glow to it. The pulsing grew in intensity, until it was so loud that it was impossible to blend it out. Valjean's body throbbed with it in turn, every beat of his heart a wave of red heat in the gloom—and then sensation grew more distinct.

The pulsing heat came from his back, and even as he concentrated on it, he became aware that this sensation was pain.

He was in pain. His back hurt. With every breath he took, a wave of agony ran through him.

Valjean groaned. Something beneath him moved. When he opened his eyes at last, he found that he was resting in a small, gloomy room. Not far above him, a rectangle shimmered; he blinked several times, his eyelids sticking to each other, and then he realized that it was an opening in the ceiling above him.

Again something shifted beneath him. Finally, with a loud snarl of frustration, the head of Inspector Javert emerged.

Still dizzy with pain and shock, Valjean blinked again. He tried to raise his hands to wipe at his sticky face, but there was the jingle of chains—he was bound.

He was bound. Suddenly it all came back. Richelot had chained him, had whipped him, and Javert—

"That is a fine mess you got me into, Jean Valjean," Javert now growled. There was a bruise at his brow, Valjean could now see that despite the dim light, and he was dusted all over with flour, his hair and greatcoat gray, so that he almost seemed a ghost.

Valjean shuddered. He found he could not talk. He tried to move, but the fall had driven all air from his lungs; now, every time he shifted, his bones ached, and new pain sprung up along the lines the whip had slashed into his skin.

With another snarl, Javert at last emerged from where he had been buried half beneath Valjean’s limbs, half beneath sacks of flour. One hand he used to grasp a fistful of Valjean’s hair, the other gripped what remained of his torn shirt. Though the pain once more took his breath away, Valjean did not resist when Javert pulled his face upward into the light that fell in through the open trapdoor.

“Jean Valjean,” Javert said again. His voice was low; even in the darkness, his eyes gleamed with a fierce delight. “How strange that I have doubted for so long. Now look at you: all it takes is to tear away the clothes you have used to hide behind, and here you are revealed once more in your filthy nature, companion to brigands and murderers. But I knew, Valjean. I have always known. Soon you and your old friends will return where you belong, and the town will know order once more. No more prostitutes treated like countesses. No more thieves wearing the mayor’s chain.”

Every word Javert spoke hit Valjean like a blow. There was that ghastly word _tu_ , which Javert hurled at him with terrible joy, a slap to the face of the mayor who had blinded him for so long. There was the terrible memory of the chains, the endless toil, a life caged not by chains and walls but by endless despair and darkness.

Even if his body could survive that torment once more, could his soul survive to be cut off from the light again?

There was a strange focus in Javert's eyes, as though even now he was committing Valjean’s face to memory, searching his features for some great revelation. Helpless, Valjean submitted to that terrible gaze; his bound hands clenched in front of his chest as though in prayer.

“Yes, keep your silence,” Javert at last snarled. A strand of the flour-gray hair hung into his face; even the immense whiskers and bushy brows had been powdered with it. Such disarray was new and terrible to behold, for in his many years of service, Javert had never entered his presence in anything but an immaculate condition.

Yet now, something fundamental seemed to have shifted. There was no doubt in Valjean’s mind that Javert would grasp him and drag him back to jail, to see him behind bars until the end of his life. And still, there was still the matter of Fantine, who would not live much longer, and her child, which he had promised to bring her.

There were a great many other things he had planned to do. Without him, who would pay for the schoolmaster for the villages, the hospital beds, the factory that was the livelihood of so many?

His money was with Laffitte. He did not doubt that if some magistrate got his hands on it, not a sou would be spent on the good work he had begun to do.

Valjean swallowed. His throat ached; he could barely force out words.

“Javert, you must—”

“It is Inspector Javert!” Javert's face was pale above him, the sight of a ghost, frightening and terrible in its rapture. Javert’s teeth shone white in the gloom, his eyes were pools of darkness. Javert was breathing heavily; every time he exhaled, a cloud of white dust rose from his ferocious whiskers.

Valjean shivered beneath him like an animal which the dog’s jaws had gripped by the ruff of its neck.

“It is Inspector Javert for the likes of you.”

Voicelessly, Valjean stared up at him, frozen by the horror evoked by that address from Javert. _Tu_ , he said, and before Valjean’s eyes rose the memory of that dog kennel, that darkest night of his soul when he had been less than a dog. Should he return to that state once more?

“Inspector Javert,” he began, staring at the man who rose from the darkness. “For many years you have known me. What harm has been done to the town?” Valjean could not even say what he pleaded for. For Javert to show mercy? Impossible!

Perhaps, simply, to be accorded more respect than a dog. To be human in the eyes of this terrifying angel kneeling above him in vengeance.

Javert barked out a hoarse laugh. More flour fell from his hair. “What harm has been done, the convict asks! And do you think I will barter with you? Do you think you can spin your lies and pull wool in front of my eyes—me, who suspected for so long?”

Here his grin widened, and Valjean shivered to behold it.

“I knew,” Javert now said, his voice low. “All these years, and I knew. You have fooled many, Jean Valjean, but not me. Not long ago I wrote to the Prefecture; who knows, perhaps there is already an answer in today’s post, an order to have you arrested and brought before the Court of Assizes!”

Javert was still breathing heavily. His gaze beheld Valjean with a near voluptuous covetousness, as though he could imagine no greater joy than to finally see the face of the convict in the countenance of the mayor.

At last, with great reluctance, he released Valjean, who could not suppress the soft sound of pain that escaped him when his back hit the sacks of flour once more.

“But my gun. Where did my gun go? One convict I have trapped, but the other tries to escape; well! Not for long. We will hunt them down; and then, Jean Valjean, you shall have company in your cell.”

Again Javert laughed, low and terrible, and Valjean’s gaze rose towards the rectangle of light above, that window to freedom which now seemed so far away.

Javert descended from the pile of sacks. Another cloud of dust and flour rose, dimming the sparse light that fell in.

“The deuce with that gun,” Javert muttered irritably. “Where can it be? Oh, what a fine state this is; one convict chained in a basement, the other on the run, and who knows what horrid things the other villains are up to! And it is Jean Valjean we have to thank for all of this.”

Valjean flinched again to hear that name which had not been spoken in nearly eight years.

A sack was pushed aside; something wooden scraped against stone. Javert did not look up as he continued to mutter.

“Yes, Jean Valjean is secure at least, but what good does that do when there is still an entire band of brigands on the run? How well-spoken he is, they said! How the taxes have risen! What a strange philanthropist! But no more of that, Jean Valjean. No more of your—”

Javert broke off. There was another dull thud as a sack was moved aside, and then Javert emerged, victorious and fearsome despite the dusting of flour that turned his face pale and gave his hair a sheen of venerable white. Yet his eyes still gleamed with the old vigor, and in his hand, he held his gun.

“Well now, I think I will have to take my leave of you,” he said, and Valjean could not quite suppress the groan that escaped when Javert grabbed his shackled wrists to peer at them.

Javert’s jaw clenched. For a moment, the triumph that lit his face was overshadowed by doubt. “And yet, what if the old fox disappears again?”

Javert tugged hard on the shackles. Valjean suffered it mutely. The iron did not give, and soon Javert released him again to stare at the open trapdoor above.

“It must be chanced,” Javert muttered through clenched teeth. “There is no choice.”

Again there was the scraping of wood, and when Valjean finally managed to raise himself onto his arms, he could make out the shape of boxes in the gloom.

Javert had pushed them together on the floor. Now he proceeded to stack bags of flour on them, breathing heavily through the clouds of white dust that rose, and pausing every now and then to fix Valjean with a stare.

“No more running,” he said as Valjean watched silently. “No more lies from you. You’ll await your fate here. And make no mistake, Jean Valjean—this time you shall not escape it.”

Again Valjean remained silent. Pleading with Javert would change nothing.

Javert tested the height of the pile of sacks he had stacked beneath the trapdoor. It did not quite suffice; he descended once more from the wobbly mound and in grim silence lifted two additional sacks onto that hill which he had built. By the end, his coat was more white than black, and he was panting; still, the next time he climbed to the top and reached out for the rectangle above them, his hands found purchase and with obvious effort, Javert at last managed to climb out of the small cellar.

Valjean knew not whether he should feel relief or fear at the sight. Then he heard the voice of Javert once more, and a shudder ran through him, for it said, “I shall return for you,” before he heard that most terrible sound of all: the trapdoor falling shut.

Everything was black. He was alone.

***

For a long time, he waited in the darkness, hopelessness swallowing all thought just like the darkness had swallowed all light.

Then, finally, something made him push himself up again. There had been a small change in the gloom. Now that his eyes had become accustomed to the complete lack of light, he could make out a small patch where the black was not quite as deep.

Above him was a small area where the darkness was not absolute and where his eyes seemed to detect the faintest hint of light.

That had to be the trapdoor. Was it truly out of reach? Had he not climbed steep walls before? It had not been locked; he had heard no sound. No, and Javert had not tried to block it by moving something heavy on top; he would have heard the sounds of it.

Perhaps Javert, who had been forced to labor so hard to make his way out, had thought it impossible that anyone should escape with the trapdoor shut, and the opening so high up. And Javert was much taller than Valjean as well. Furthermore, there was the matter of the chains that still bound Valjean. The shackles would make any attempt to climb impossible. And yet…

Sudden realization made him tense. Richelot had ripped his shirt—but the old sou was still in the pocket of his trousers. The hollow sou, the sou he clung to and which he brought wherever he went, forever unable to shake the nightmare of that lifetime in irons.

The chains clanked as he felt for the coin, his fingers trembling until they closed around the familiar shape. Even though it was dark, the hollow sou, holy to the convict whose freedom it held, was as familiar to him as his own hand. He had no need for light as he opened the sou and took from it the tiny, coiled metal saw.

Then he felt along the chains that still bound his hands until he found a suitable spot. One end of the chain he trapped beneath his foot to hold it taut.

Then he began to saw.

How many times had a convict fled the bagne in such a way? To Jean Valjean, who had escaped the darkness of Toulon four times, there was a certain familiarity in the situation, a comfort at the repetitive motion, the rasping of the saw, the quick beating of his heart. Even the terror of the darkness and the small, locked room were familiar.

He sawed for a long time. He could not say how long it took. In time, even his fear that Javert might return was swallowed by this labor. In his mind, he had returned to the bagne once more. His back ached from the bite of the lash. The air he breathed was moldy. His shoulders ached. The chains were heavy.

What year was it? It could have been 1802 or 1809. There was no difference to him now.

M. Madeleine was gone. All that was left was that naked instinct which had let him survive the bagne, taking over during those times when terror and despair gripped him, when the fear was almost too much to bear.

He did not think of his return to Montreuil then. He did not think of Javert, nor even of Fantine and her child, or the factory. Forgotten was the money resting with Laffitte. In the darkness, he became once more what he had been for nineteen long years: an animal deprived of all light, trapped until it forgot what it was to be human, squashed by that greatest terror of all until it knew only one thought, one desire: freedom.

And as he had run before, again and again, so he ignored the pain of his tortured body now, sawing quietly, patiently, with only the terrified heartbeat echoing in his ears for company.

At last, the saw bit through the link of his chain. Valjean grasped it and pulled with all his might—slowly, the link was forced open, the gap widening, and, panting, he relaxed and pulled the broken link free.

As easily as that, the chain was broken. Now two short chains were dangling from the shackles around his arms. These would have to be dealt with later if he wanted to escape notice, but for now, he could use his arms freely again.

The ache of his wounds was worse than before. Valjean was covered in sweat that ran down his back, but he ignored the bite of the salt and forced himself to slide off the stack of sacks on which he had rested.

He made his way by touch alone to the stack of boxes and sacks which Javert had assembled earlier. His knees were trembling, his body swaying by the time he made it to the top, but the same instinct drove him forward. The urge was as old and relentless as the tide, pulling at him like the urge that called birds to fly south in the winter: that instinctive need for freedom. He welcomed the hold it had on him, abandoned himself to it. Everything was familiar. In eight long, peaceful years, his body had still never forgotten how to focus all his fundamental strength and willpower on that one vital objective.

The ache was a dull, relentless throb in the background. The fear that Javert might return was no other than that old fear that a guard might see his escape.

He did not think; in that moment, instinct alone made him act.

Javert's lofty stature had enabled him to reach the edge of the trapdoor with his arms and to pull himself out. Valjean was shorter; as he stretched, the sacks beneath him wobbling precariously, he could not reach the ceiling above no matter how hard he tried. But the faint gleam of light was still there: a small part of the darkness above that was a little less dense.

He tried to remember the layout of the room and the trapdoor. Could he reach it if he added another sack? But already it was difficult to keep his balance, and when he shifted forward another inch to stretch impossibly higher, he nearly toppled over.

Panting, he reached out for the wall to stabilize himself. No, it would not hold if he added more sacks. But still, in his memory he now saw a vague shape of the open, light-filled rectangle.

He had watched Javert pull himself out. It had taken Javert a lot of effort, but even so, Valjean now remembered how Javert had for a moment found purchase on some sort of hook, a metal loop into which during times when the mill had been used, a ladder would have been fastened so that apprentices could carry the sacks up and down.

Valjean breathed deeply. Every muscle of his body ached. Darkness surrounded him, closing in on him. What was he now but a trapped animal once more? He was weary. There was nothing but despair in his heart. Would it not be easier to lie down on the sacks and wait for Javert's return?

Once more he took note of that almost imperceptible gleam above. Then he closed his eyes and jumped, propelling himself upwards with all his strength while every muscle in his body screamed in protest.

It felt to him as though he hung in the darkness. Where was up and down? Had he jumped far enough? Would he crash to the ground, perhaps break his neck in the attempt?

He stretched his arms, wider and wider, reached out with his fingers in despair. He had not made it, he thought, terrified and helpless when he encountered nothing but air. He had not made it, and now he would fall, he would fall and never be free...

A groan escaped him when his fingers brushed wood. The trapdoor!

Already gravity pulled at him. For a split second, he grasped at the empty air with his hands, scrambling with aching fingertips at the rough wood of the trapdoor, slipping, sliding, finding no purchase...

And then his hand brushed metal.

Instinct made him grasp it with both hands. Another pained groan escaped him when gravity finally caught up with him, his full weight now resting on his aching shoulders. The tendons of his arms burned like fire, but still Valjean did not stop to think. He could not hold this position for long. There was no time left to give in to despair.

He pulled himself up by the hook, groaning and sweating, his back a field furrowed with fire, until his head and right shoulder brushed the wooden trapdoor.

A whimper escaped him from behind his clenched teeth, his muscles protesting, but even so he did not stop. Somehow, he found purchase with his other hand against the edge of the trapdoor, and then he pushed upwards, suspended only by the brute strength of his arms, forcing the trapdoor upwards with his neck and bleeding shoulder.

He was sobbing; everything hurt. He was trapped in a vortex of darkness and pain and deepest despair. Almost it seemed to him that he had died and was in purgatory, that he was Sisyphus pushing a large stone with his aching body for all eternity, no beginning and no end to this torment, and no reason save that suffering was his fate. Surely this had to be an eternal punishment doled out by some large and ungentle hand that had measured the full weight of his sins.

And then suddenly there was light.

The trapdoor rose, inch by inch. After a moment, gasping for breath, Valjean managed to let go with one hand, grasping the opening instead to find better purchase.

His hold was precarious, his strength threatening to slip for a second—but then, struggling and groaning, driven nearly to the end of what his back could bear, he forced his screaming muscles to lift the trapdoor another inch, and another, until he could force his chest through.

He wept with pain and relief when the weight of his body no longer hung by his shoulders and arms. Again he reached out with his aching hands. This time, he found ridges in the wooden floor to cling to and pulled himself forward inch by painful inch.

At last he made it out of the trapdoor. For a long moment, he rested unmoving on the dusty floor of the mill's basement. He wept, his body trembling from the effort it had taken.

He could not make himself move; his muscles had turned to water, his tendons to dust, all of his strength used up in that one, impossible feat.

Finally, when his body had stopped shaking and his tears ceased dripping onto the flour-dusted rough floor, that same old, relentless instinct whipped him into motion once more. He groaned as he pushed himself to his knees. To bend just a little seemed more than his back could take. He panted. Then, slowly, he staggered to his feet. The world seemed to turn before his eyes; he was dizzy, his mouth parched, and there was a dull roar in his ears.

The mill seemed a strange sight to him now as he looked around. Could it really be true that not long ago, he had hung here in chains, whipped by an escaped convict from Toulon? Could it really be true that this morning, he had woken in his bed, warm and rested, had eaten his breakfast and then walked out in the open to oversee matters in his factory?

It seemed difficult to believe he had been that man.

Was this not instead who he truly was: Jean Valjean, whom they called Jean-le-Cric, made to suffer, made to be incarcerated and flee, again and again, in an eternal, hopeless cycle from which he would never escape?

But even as Valjean stood there in despair, that implacable drive took hold of him once more. It drove him up the stairs. He went despairingly, fearing that he was running right into the waiting arms of a group of soldiers which Javert must certainly have sent for him, or the returning brigands that had brought him here—but the mill was empty.

He stumbled out of the mill, leaving his place of torture behind. It was still impossible to think. All he had was that old instinct that pulled on his heart, calling him to flee—but once he stepped out of the door, he stopped, frozen by sudden shock.

During his torment, the night had ended. Now dawn was arriving. The stars had vanished, and there was a glow of rose and purple lining the edge of the horizon, warming the hill upon which Montreuil stood with its gentle light.

Even from this vantage point, Valjean could see the tower of the church Saint-Saulve, the roof gleaming with all the colors of the dawn.

That old instinct pierced his heart once more with its claws. It told him to run, to stay away from the town where even now, the police might wait in readiness to apprehend him. That instinct said to make his way through hills and forests, avoid all paths, and collect those six hundred from Laffitte, which had been kept at his immediate disposal just for such an event.

Instead, shivering, his eyes still wet with tears, he took the path that led east towards Montreuil, his eyes on the spire of Saint-Saulve that shone with a light he dared not disobey.


	4. Chapter 4

It was late. The hunt for the escaped convict had led Javert nearly all the way to Estréelles. Fortunately, he had driven the villain straight into the arms of a group of soldiers, with whom he had then continued to Montcavrel, where they found the band of ruffians hidden in the basement of an inn.

With the convicts chained once more, Javert had commandeered a tilbury and made his way back towards the old mill. When he arrived, the water gleaming in the light of the morning sun and the horse’s coat wet with sweat, Javert’s chest was filled with restlessness. Had he left the mouse hole for too long? Had the absence of the cat been noted; had the trapped animal gnawed its way out once more?

Chest heaving, formidable whiskers bristling, the pistol in his hand, Javert descended onto the mill like an avenging angel on Judgment Day.

Words could not express the agony he experienced when he reached the basement and found the trapdoor open.

The prison was empty. The jailbird had flown out.

Javert, who had already seen his prey safely pinned, wriggling beneath the victorious paw, was filled by a great rage. Coat billowing, he searched the small storage room, making use this time of a ladder he found in the basement. No trace of his prisoner was to be found.

Jean Valjean had escaped his grasp once more.

It was close to noon when Javert returned to Montreuil-sur-Mer. The church bells rang when he crossed the gate, but he spared no look for the tower above. Furious, humiliated, whiskers disheveled, in his great agitation at having certain victory snatched from his hands by this thief who had evaded him all these years, he had no eyes for anything but the treacherous mayor’s factory. When he encountered a sergeant of the guard in the streets, he gave orders to have the town’s gates watched and the streets towards Abbeville and Hesdin searched immediately.

Jean Valjean would have set out directly for Paris, Javert was certain of that. Valjean would try and shake off the trail of his pursuer in what men like these called the ‘great village’ like so many a villain had done before. The coach to Amiens would have to be watched as well; in fact, they might still corner the retreating wolf at Abbeville, where the coach would stop at an inn for the night.

Javert did not speak when he descended upon the former mayor’s lodgings. The portress, eyes widening at the fury on the Inspector’s face, retreated before him. Javert ignored her explanations that the mayor was not in and must have left early, and after a moment, she fell silent and fled into her kitchen.

The shadow of grim defeat clung to Javert as he ascended the stair. And yet, while the mouse might have fled from his clutches, its lair was still at his disposal. There might be papers, secret letters, forgeries that would not only tell the tale of Jean Valjean’s crimes committed beneath the very eyes of the citizens of Montreuil-sur-Mer, but might also yield a new trail for Javert to follow. With luck, he might find the name of an accomplice in Paris, or a remote inn in the countryside where an old fox such as Valjean could expect to find shelter.

“Very well; this is all very well,” he muttered as he climbed the steps. “The mouse is gone, the rat vanished into the gutter once more, the wolf hiding in the mountains. But the truth is out. No more will convicts play mayor; no more will I have to watch justice mocked, the law turned on its head, a woman of the town raised above all that is proper…!”

He broke off as he reached the door. Javert was breathing heavily. Anger filled his chest, a great, deep humiliation at having been right along, at having been forced to bow and scrape before a convict, of having finally unmasked the man, only to have his deserved victory stolen from him.

What would they say now, those fine citizens who had competed for the favor of this man, who had hoodwinked them all?

Javert desired no praise, just the satisfaction of having delivered one more criminal back to the bagne. But that triumph was gone, and so it was in a black cloud of resentment that he opened the door, found it unlocked to his great surprise, and entered the quarters of M. Madeleine, who had in truth been Jean Valjean all along.

The man’s rooms were sparse but comfortable. Javert’s lips rose in a small, satisfied smile when he imagined the man returned to where he belonged: unwashed bodies on the planks, iron chaining those brutish limbs. Yes, Valjean might run, but sooner or later, fate would deliver him where he belonged.

With long strides, Javert crossed the small sitting room towards the man’s bed chamber, deeply gratified at being able to properly investigate the infamous grotto at last: those candle sticks, evidence of an old crime, and surely papers leading him to further villainous deeds. How long had he desired now to rip this room apart, while the gossips would only sigh and whisper about that fabled anchorite’s cell that had disappointed their wild tales?

But Javert had not come to look for winged hour-glasses and cross-bones. He had come for the evidence the man must have left behind, the first traces of the trail that sooner or later would lead him to where Valjean had chosen to hide.

Ripping the door open, Javert at last beheld the convict’s bed chamber. Sunlight fell through a small window, gleaming on the candle sticks of silver that decorated the mantelpiece.

It shone, too, onto the figure of a man sitting on the bed, letters piled next to him, his face filled by great calmness and despair.

This man was Jean Valjean.

When Javert entered the room, barely able to believe what he saw, Valjean’s head rose. He wore clean clothes, although he was still in his shirtsleeves. The cravat at his throat was unbound. His eyes were dark, deep lines of pain surrounded his mouth, and over night, the hair on his head had seemed to turn white. In the light of the sun, it gleamed with the splendor of the silver candle sticks.

Jean Valjean did not speak.

Javert in turn could barely believe his good fortune. The cloud of gloom that had descended onto him now lifted. In its stead, a sudden, fierce joy filled him. Here was the mouse safely in his grasp after all!

“Jean Valjean,” he said. In his voice reverberated a terrible triumph, like the ringing of a great bell over a battlefield.

Javert took a step closer. With the victim firmly in his grasp once more, Javert savored the moment. The window was closed; Valjean could not escape that way. One hand slid into his pocket to take hold of the gun, should the convict try to summon his brute strength to make his way past Javert out of the door. With the police and soldiers alerted to the false mayor’s identity, he would not make it out of Montreuil; even so, having tasted the bitterness of defeat once, Javert did not want to chance another attempt at flight.

“Here we are once more,” Javert said. His lips twisted into another smile. “I pray you will not make this difficult. We have your companions behind bars, and now you shall follow.”

He aimed the pistol at Valjean when at his words, a shudder ran through the man. For a long moment, Valjean did not move.

“I have been waiting for you,” Valjean said at last. His voice was rough and weary, although his eyes seemed filled by a distant light, as though it was not Javert he was seeing. “Now you may have me.”

Slowly, Jean Valjean held out his arms to be shackled. There was a weary nobleness to the gesture; it seemed to Javert all of a sudden that he beheld a lion baring his throat in surrender, a saint offering himself up to the tormentor’s hand, his head haloed by celestial grace.

Javert was struck speechless.

A convict surrendering himself? A criminal willingly submitting to the law? Impossible.

“But what is this?” he said with suspicion, once he had gathered his bearings. “Some new game? It won’t help you now; no, I won’t be tricked, not when I knew the truth for so long.”

Valjean’s breathing was labored. His chest rose and fell with great difficulty, although he still held his arms out in surrender, offering himself up to Javert’s authority. The sight of his bared wrists roused something within Javert’s chest.

What was afoot here? Javert felt out of his depth. Was Jean Valjean once more trying to play a game with him? Well then, Javert would refuse to play!

Striking quick as a snake, he grabbed those wrists, closing his own hands around them in the place of teethshackles. Valjean flinched, but offered no protest.

Javert bared his teeth as he stared into his face, daring the convict to defy him once more—but Jean Valjean remained mute and submissive, his hands shaking in Javert’s grasp as though he had to will himself not to resist.

Then Javert saw something from the corner of his eye. There, at Valjean’s side, the pristine shirt was darkening, as though a shadow had fallen upon the room. As he turned his eyes towards the spot, the patch of darkness spread. It was no shadow, he now saw. It was blood that was slowly seeping into the shirt, dying the white linen crimson.

Something about the sight rocked Javert. One hand released Valjean’s wrists, only to grip his shoulder with the strength of a vise. Without protest, Valjean allowed himself to be turned. His breathing was loud enough that Javert could hear it in the silence of the room. On his back, lines of red had spread across the white shirt, blood soaking into the linen even as Javert watched.

Once more Javert was speechless.

He had watched this man get whipped. He had seen the wounds with his own eyes. This should come as no surprise to him, but something about the vision was so disconcerting that for a moment, Javert knew not how to make sense of it.

At last he realized what was wrong. Why had the man not seen a doctor? He had escaped from the mill. He’d hurried back to Montreuil with enough time to put on clean clothes, and then—then he had calmly sat on his bed, reading letters, awaiting the arrival of Javert?

The dog within Javert’s chest stood confused.

Javert’s hand tightened its grip on Valjean’s shoulder. The man let out a tormented groan. At last, Javert released him, but only to take hold of his shirt instead. He could not say what made him act next. It was as if some invisible force had taken hold of him, some terrible, breathless desire to see it with his own eyes: the proof that this man in the clothes and the chambers of the mayor was that old convict, that this martyr whose submission seemed to needle him like mocking laughter was still firmly in his grasp.

Valjean did not resist when Javert stripped the blood-soaked shirt from him, although he made a soft, pained sound when the fabric was pulled away from where it must have stuck to the wounds.

Again Javert felt deeply unsettled. What man would put on clean clothes over wounds without washing and bandaging them first? Valjean could not have run like this.

The convict’s back was broad and glistening with sweat. Valjean seemed to have washed before Javert arrived, but his back was still dusted with dirt. As Javert watched, more blood trickled from the places where the whip had torn open his skin.

Richelot had done good work. The whip had bitten deeply; Javert, to whom a lashed back was a familiar sight, once more felt on edge. This was without a doubt Jean Valjean. The broad neck, the strong shoulders, the skin scarred with the white welts of past punishments: all these things spoke his name with such conviction that Javert felt ecstatic with vindication.

And yet, why was the convict still wearing the mask of the saintly mayor?

“Come now, come now,” he muttered, fretful at this phenomenon that seemed to him yet one more willful disregard on the mayor’s part of all that was right and proper. “Let’s not play games anymore. You’re Jean Valjean, that much is clear, and soon we’ll have you back in the bagne. What’s this game for, then? Why have you been waiting here for me, as nice and quiet as a songbird in a cage?”

Valjean took in a deep, shuddering breath. He turned his head and looked at the pile of letters Javert had disregarded so far.

“A letter came,” he said quietly. “It was for you. I took the liberty of opening it; it came from the Prefecture.”

“Ha.” The air went out of Javert with satisfaction. “So then; you saw with your own eyes the order to arrest you and—”

Javert broke off. As he spoke, he had taken up the letter on top of the pile of papers. The hand was familiar, as was the heavy paper and the seal of the Secretary of the Prefect.

It was a letter addressed to him by M. Chabouillet, and in it, he was tersely informed that the real Jean Valjean had been found and was tried in Arras, and that he was a fool to suspect the mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer.

“But how can this be?” Javert said to himself, pulling at his whiskers in great consternation. “They are wrong in Arras; of course they are wrong. I have Jean Valjean here; there’s no doubt of that. But who is it they are trying in Arras?”

Another shudder went through Valjean. “An innocent man. They are asking of you to come and testify against him. Now you may go and tell them that they are mistaken, that they have to set that man free.”

There was a great, despairing calmness in Valjean’s voice, and Javert bared his teeth.

“What’s in it for you?” he demanded, crushing the letter in his agitation. “What new game is this?”

Jean Valjean remained silent. Furious, Javert took up another letter from the bed. This one was a simple note, informing the mayor that the woman Fantine had died early this morning in the hospital.

“Well then, the whore’s dead,” Javert muttered. “That saves the trouble of arresting her.”

At his words, Valjean flinched, but remained silent. Blood was still trickling down the scarred, broad back before him. Yes; the brutish strength that had been so long hidden beneath fine clothes and polite manners was all too apparent now. For too long this man had upset the natural order of things. But now the whore was dead, the convict would be chained, and soon enough order would be reinstated in this town.

Javert leafed through the other papers. Were these evidence for further crimes the mayor had committed?

They spoke of a child, of an inn in Montfermeil. They were addressed to the dead woman, he now saw, and at last, irate, he put them aside when they refused to reveal further villainous plans.

“Well, keep your silence. When all is said and done, you are Valjean and will return to jail, and there’ll be no more whores and beggars to plague me!”

Still unsettled, Javert stared at the man before him. Once more he saw him arch beneath the agony of the lash, his face wet with tears and sweat, the strength of his body rearing up against the authority of the chains to no avail.

Why had he not fled? Why had he waited for Javert to find him? Javert had long prided himself on the knowing dog’s senses, but now it seemed to him that even with the convict in his grasp, he had lost the trail. What villain would surrender himself, if not to distract from some greater crime?

“I have sent a letter to Arras and to the Prefecture,” Valjean now said, his voice small. “Confessing to my identity as Jean Valjean. Yet you will have to go to Arras yourself to—”

“And do you think you can order me now?” Javert forced out, fury bubbling up in him. What good was this confession if it yet did not put an end to this vexation? “I have told you, you will address me as Inspector Javert!”

“You will have to go to Arras, Inspector Javert,” Valjean repeated calmly while blood kept trickling down his back. “And tell them that the man in their custody is innocent. He cannot be punished for crimes that I have committed. They must let him go.”

Javert let out a bark of laughter. “And here we go again. Innocent, the convict says. Well, I hope that beggar’s fate will comfort you when we’ve returned you to the bagne.”

Valjean did not answer. Still agitated, bristling at this whole affair, Javert now took the shackles from his pocket. At the clanking of chains, Valjean’s head lowered. He turned towards Javert, hands trembling, but showing otherwise no sign of agitation when he offered up his hands once more.

Javert breathed easier once he saw the irons encircle the man’s wrists. No matter what game Valjean was playing, he would not escape now. Deep in his heart, Javert was still unsettled. The man’s deeds did not add up. Had Jean Valjean gone mad to surrender himself to his jailer? Had the whipping perhaps frightened him and reminded him of where he belonged?

Yet in the end, what did it matter? He had the criminal in his grasp. The mouse was firmly pinned in place beneath his claws; the game had come to an end. What did these inconsistencies matter? The doubt that had suddenly sprung up in his chest irked him, like an itch he could not reach to scratch; he wanted nothing to do with it.

He would deliver the man to jail. Jean Valjean would be sentenced and then returned to the bagne, or perhaps executed; it was all the same to Javert. What mattered was that order was restored, and in time, this man’s perverse delight in upsetting all that was good and right would be forgotten.

And yet. The man’s surrender was less satisfying than it ought to be, after the many years Javert had been on his trail. How was it possible that the man was in his grasp, and yet Javert still twitched with the restlessness of a hound who had scented blood?

Javert’s gaze fell onto the sheets. The once pristine linen was stained crimson; a spot of blood had spread where Valjean was sitting, blood dripping from his back.

Something in Javert grew restless again at the sight; he forced himself to ignore it. On the nightstand he now saw a bowl filled with water and a cloth, which Valjean must have used to wash with when he returned.

Javert did not know what move towards it. Perhaps it was simply a need to wipe away what remained of the mask with which the convict had so long fooled both state and citizens. Teeth clenched tightly, Javert took hold of the bowl. He dipped the cloth into the water. Then, slowly, methodically, he began to wash the lash-marked back.

Beneath his touch, Valjean shuddered like a horse, although he offered no resistance. The convict’s skin was hot. When Javert squeezed water from the cloth, it ran down Valjean’s back, washing away the dust of the mill, mingling with the blood that still ran from where the whip had cut deepest. Pink-tinged, the water trickled downward until it soaked into the back of Valjean’s trousers and dripped onto the already stained sheets.

Javert tried to force back a sudden upheaval of emotion that sprung up in him. Mechanically, he dipped the rag into the bowl once more, then pressed the wet cloth to Valjean’s back. This time, a gasp escaped the convict, a tremor running through the strong body. More blood trickled from a slash that had torn the skin, and Javert squeezed until water ran in rivulets, washing blood and dust from the wound.

Javert could not say what he felt as he watched the trails of blood. This emotion that had arisen stymied him. A small, treacherous voice whispered that Valjean had waited for him to save the man Champmathieu in Arras. Javert wiped it away with the same thoroughness with which he washed off the flowing blood.

And yet, the unrest in him did not recede. Javert had never liked a mystery; now, with the puzzle of the false mayor solved, he felt vexed that in its stead, a greater mystery seemed to arise.

Again he dipped the cloth into the water. This time, he pressed it to the convict’s neck and then wiped downward. There was no gentleness in his touch; in this, Javert was as efficient as in all other things.

Valjean’s wrists were clasped in iron. The window was closed. Still, did not the man possess a brute strength that might enable him to flee even now? Instead he had submitted, meek as a lamb, to Javert’s grasp.

Javert’s hand rose by itself to tug on his whiskers; then, seeing that Valjean’s blood had dyed his skin red, he let his hand sink again. He put the cloth into the water.

Before him, Valjean’s back stretched, a map marked by old scars that were as familiar to Javert as the spiderweb of the streets of Montreuil. This was the map that spelled out the life of the bagnard. New, red marks had been added by the hand of Richelot; in time these too would fade to white, and some other hand in the bagne would add new marks in red, an endless cycle.

It was difficult to breathe. The sense of urgency that weighed down on him was choking him. He could not say what was wrong, only that suddenly, something fundamental threatened to shift. He felt as a man standing by a precipice, a storm brewing in the distance. If he took one step forward, would he see the abyss loom before him?

With difficulty, Javert forced his eyes away from that scarred back and its marks of suffering. Instead, he moved forward, until his eyes suddenly came to rest on the room’s only decoration.

There, on the wall, gleamed a crucifix of copper. The sunlight that fell in through the window had reached the part of the wall where it hung. Javert’s lips twisted into a snarl as he remembered the mayor’s false piety—but when he turned, Valjean’s face, like his own, was facing towards the crucifix, and at last Javert saw fear in Valjean’s eyes.

The sight hit Javert like the stab of a knife. Here was the reason that had unsettled him so—the man had not shown fear, when any other arrest Javert had made had always been accompanied by the satisfaction of seeing the villain quail before him. Neither had Jean Valjean shown fear when he had been chained and whipped, nor when he had been trapped in the basement with Javert.

Was it not right that he should show fear now, when he would be returned to the bagne, or perhaps sentenced to death for his crimes in Montreuil? Should not Javert rest at ease now that order had been restored?

Still it seemed to him that there was an abyss looming before him; that this man stood between him and some great precipice; that all it took was a gust of wind to send Javert tumbling down into a great darkness.

A breeze came in from the window; the sunlight crowned Valjean’s white head with gold. Still Valjean looked at the crucifix, mute and afraid, and from the wall, the Savior seemed to return his gaze with a heavy implacability, fixed on Valjean as though Javert was not there.

Javert found himself recoiling from the image. What new devilry was this? For long years now, Jean Valjean had played the philanthropist; he had given alms and gone to Mass every Sunday and preached to all who would listen of nettles and other foolish nonsense that had set Javert’s teeth on edge. Did now Jean Valjean seek to seduce Javert like the devil, donning the wounds of a martyr and offering himself up like the lamb in this unholy Passion? Had some devil cast Javert as Pilate and elevated the same convict whom Javert had seen sweat and toil to terrible sublimity?

With the chasm yawning before him, there was only one way for Javert to go. Unsettled, he took a step backwards from that frightening upheaval. With his eyes averted from where the crucifix shone, he took the dirtied water and stood to pour it out. From a pitcher, he filled the bowl with clean water.

Then he thrust his bloodied hands into it. He watched as the water turned red, tendrils of crimson lifting from his skin. He did not speak; his chest heaved as he washed his hands until his skin was clean once more and the bowl dark, filled with blood-tinged water.

During all this time, Valjean had not shifted. He sat in silence on the bed, calm and lonely before the gaze of the crucifix in the sunlight, his back bent under the burden of his wounds with the nobleness of the lion. Javert clenched his jaw as he beheld that tableau. The world was quaking beneath his feet; in turn, Javert clung to the only certainty he had ever known, dried his hands, and then grabbed hold of the convict’s chained wrists to deliver him to jail, his gaze firmly averted from the abyss that still loomed in the man’s eyes.

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/savaTx8.jpg)


	5. Chapter 5

The labor had ceased early that day. It was still afternoon on this 27th of July in the year 1823, and the men who had been released from their toil for a precious few hours stood sullenly in the court of the bagne of Toulon, sweating and swearing in the sun that burned mercilessly from the sky. Green and red caps bloomed in abundance in this strange garden which offered little leisure; yet even so, men dressed in the latest fashion had come strolling in, gawking at the churlish convicts who had no choice but bear their curious gazes.

Jean Valjean had found a rare spot in the shade. The heat was relentless. Sweat ran down his back in rivulets, dripping from his temple into the white beard that had begun to sprout. It was yet short. He had arrived in the bagne only a week ago, but already the gentle hills and fields of Montreuil-sur-Mer seemed but a distant dream to him.

The Bagne of Toulon, that great Behemoth, had swallowed him whole as it had swallowed so many others, chewing him with iron teeth until he turned into another number: one more cog in that great system of labor and pain that would eventually be spit out once all life had been sucked from him.

Jean Valjean was now 9430, and despite the eight years of freedom, he found himself fitting into that living death, the lot of the bagnard, with frightful ease. Already it seemed hard to imagine that once, people had said  _ Monsieur  _ and addressed him with respect. Here, he was addressed with the cudgel instead, prodded and punished like a senseless animal. Those who suffered alongside him kept a respectful distance for the most part, for his deeds had procured him a reputation in the bagne which won him the sort of esteem these men felt for those of their comrades who had grown to a certain infamy for their misdeeds.

Valjean worked and slept and prayed. When there was the chance to go to Mass, he went. The world that had once seemed so vast, stretching endlessly before him with its blue skies and green meadows, now was reduced once more to the stifling air and cramped confines of the salles.

"There," he heard the distant voice of a guard. "This is the infamous Gabin who pretended he was a marquis and fooled the widow of the mayor of Montauroux into giving him shelter and fine clothes for half a year. And here we have Bourbon—a lifetime of blackmail and forged letters. He'd dupe the devil himself, they say—cheated his own mother, too!"

Valjean kept his eyes on a distant wall, motionless, a gentle breeze drying the sweat on his brow.  A guard was showing several high-ranking visitors around. Valjean dared not hope to be spared this humiliation, for his story had caused enough public interest that they had transported him to be tried at the Court of Assizes of the Var, and the trial of the former mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer had been published in many papers.

More sweat trickled down his neck. He watched as a cloud drifted by. The heat was oppressive. His shoulder ached from the brand that had been burned into his skin a mere two days ago. The  _ TP _ had seared through flesh until it scorched even the tender skin of his soul with its shame: ignominy now forever a part of him. The pain was a constant pulse. With every breath its fire made itself known to him, speaking clearly and loudly: "You are a wretch, Jean Valjean, a convict and a thief, and from hereon this is what you will be known as until the day your pitiful life ends in toil and sweat."

No stirring of emotion on his face gave voice to the torment within him. He listened instead to the voice of the guard, listing the sins of every man chained with such pride as though he were showing off the virtues of mythical beasts to his rapt audience: there was Scylla, there the Hydra, here the Cretan Bull, all beaten and chained in sullen submission to the greedy eyes devouring them.

Jean Valjean eyed the distant roof. It could be scaled—if he found a way to escape his chains.

There was a box buried in the woods near Montfermeil. Six hundred thousands francs he had withdrawn in Paris from the banker Laffitte in the Rue d’Artois, after he had escaped the jail of Arras into which he had been locked once Javert had brought him there. For three days, he had been free again—although it had been the freedom of the hare already feeling the breath of its pursuers. Despite the hunt for him, Valjean had traveled to Montfermeil and hidden the money. Then he had returned to Paris where it was easy for a man in his situation to find others who could help: forged papers, wigs and the clothes of a workman, a simple room rented in an old house from a shrewd landlady who asked no questions.

Once this was arranged, he had wanted to return to Montfermeil to collect the child—but this was when Javert had found him, and the shackles had put an end to his careful plans.

"Here we have Brunot. Wedded seven women in one year, and when they tried to arrest him, he escaped all dressed up in a wig and gown! Prettier than his last bride, they said! But in the end, you didn't make it far, eh Brunot?"

The convict called out something in response and there was coarse laughter from the men around him.

Valjean rubbed his right leg. As soon as he escaped, he would need to head back to Montfermeil. Here was where his fame had quickly proved useful, for the men in the bagne, awed by his exploits, had eagerly accepted him into their midst and supplied him with all the knowledge essential to the bagnard. Already, Valjean knew when and where an escaped convict could expect to find shelter outside of these walls, and where it was possible to acquire new clothes and supplies for the long way to Paris. There had been money sewn into his trousers when they had arrested him in Paris; by one way or another, Valjean had managed to hold onto it until he had arrived in Toulon, where he had expended a small amount in the ways expected of a convict with his infamy and means, meaning the bribery of guards and the purchase of better garments and food, saving what remained for the first chance of escape.

"Have you not that famous villain here? Jean Valjean, who was mayor of a town in the north?" a different voice now asked.

At the sound, a jolt ran through Valjean, his heart skipping a beat at the shock.

That was the voice of Javert. He would recognize it anywhere. But how could that be?

"Oh, and a right scoundrel that is!” the guard replied cheerfully. “Here he is, messieurs, the devil himself: Jean Valjean."

The voices had come to a stop in front of him. Valjean felt his heart racing in his chest. The brand at his shoulder ached as though the red-hot iron was still pressed to his soul. With infinite slowness, as though on his shoulders rested a burden that could barely be borne, he turned his head.

Before him stood a group of ten visitors, well-dressed, with the air of traveling gentlemen. Pointing towards him with a cudgel was the guard—and amidst the group stood a tall man of forbidding appearance, clad in a black greatcoat despite the summer's heat, face shadowed by his hat and large, bristling whiskers.

That man was Javert. Valjean felt his blood turn to ice as their eyes met.

How could this be? What had driven Javert here? Had there been some new development Valjean was not aware of; had the king's commute of his penalty been rescinded and had Javert come to see the execution carried through...?

No, impossible, he told himself, even though his pulse was as loud as thunder in his ears.

"You will have read about his acts of villainy, messieurs! He was in the bagne for nineteen years—a thief and a dangerous man, robbed a house, four escape attempts while he was here! He was finally released on parole, but immediately took up his old life of crime. He robbed a child—one of the Savoyards—and was part of a godless band of robbers that plagued the area for many years. Who knows how many throats he slit and innocents he defiled? A real Hercules, this one; but don’t be afraid. He can do no harm now. In his time, he was mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer in the north. Oh yes, he’s a famous man, our Jean Valjean here. He kept them fooled for many years. And when they arrested him at last, he fled again and led them a chase all the way to Paris.”

Valjean could not look away from Javert, who watched him from beneath the shadow of his hat, his face unreadable. Here then was the ignominy Valjean had feared. Here was a new shame, to add to the beatings from the galley-sergeants and the searches conducted by the convict-guards.

And yet, was it not also true that beyond all these strangers there was another one watching him? Even in this pitiless disgrace he was forced to bear, was there not a taste of Heaven in the thought that he was followed by the bishop's eyes?

“The man is pale,” Javert now said, the familiar voice calling Valjean back to the present. “Is he not well? Stand up!” Javert commanded gruffly.

Once more Valjean was filled by a sudden shock. To bear the strangers’ curiosity was one thing; to have Javert look at him in his degradation and talk to him as one might talk to a mongrel on the streets was quite another.

Sweating in the heat, Valjean slowly raised himself from his seat in the shade. The brand pulsed with hot agony. The sun was scorching his skin.

“He’s swaying on his feet.”

Against the angry sound the guard made, Javert suddenly stood before him, that large hand which he had feared for so long clenching around his arm like a vise.

A new pulse of pain shot through his shoulder. The brand was burning; he imagined that Javert would have to be able to see it even through the red coat. His lips parted in silent agony.

Javert’s jaw clenched. His fingers tightened around the rough wool of his cassock. Forcefully, he pulled it open; this time, a gasp escaped Valjean’s lips, and he shuddered as the disgrace of his brand was exposed to the air.

Javert’s eyes were scalding him. Under the heat of his gaze, the brand went up in flame. Valjean trembled, bearing even this, thinking no more of the roof that could be scaled or the money buried in Montfermeil, but praying only that he might be spared this pitiless man and his delight in seeing his shame uncovered.

“The brand is inflamed. I’m taking him to the hospital.”

“Come now,” the guard said, anger in his voice, for Valjean was the newest and finest creature on exhibition for his guests. “Who do you think you are? You cannot—”

“I am here on order from Paris,” Javert said, releasing Valjean at last to turn to the guard. He pulled a letter from his pocket.

Valjean stood silent and still trembling as a new fear rose up within him. What could Javert want to do with him?

“The prefect himself sent me, for there are many questions he demands answers to. Among them the whereabouts of six hundred thousand francs withdrawn from Laffitte.”

A tremor ran through Valjean. Yes, this made more sense; of course they would search for his money and try to find a way to claim it for the crown!

“I will take the man to the hospital, and there I will question him.”

Javert did not wait for an answer. Again his hand clenched around Valjean’s arm. Valjean followed, meek as a lamb, unable to think, torn between terror at having this familiar, terrible hunting-dog snapping at his heels once more when he was chained, and relief at escaping the stares of these men who found delight in seeing his infamy displayed to them as though he were an animal in the Jardin des Plantes.

Javert did not speak. He walked with long steps, his fingers tight around Valjean’s arm. Thoughts rose and fell in Valjean’s mind, his head a maelstrom of conflicting emotion. Relief was first and foremost: the humiliation of being displayed to strangers as an animal in a zoo was hard to bear, even after the hours he had spent exposed on a scaffold after his sentence had been spoken in Var. Then the worry returned. Javert had stated the purpose of this visit; yet the questions he was about to ask Valjean could not answer. He knew too well how in the possession of the state, what good this money could yet accomplish in his own hands would come to nothing. And there was the child for whom he would have to provide. How could he, an escaped convict, fulfill his promise to Fantine and care for the girl? Money could hide the disrepute that clung to him; money could buy him a new name and papers to go with it; that air of respectability beneath which he had hid in plain sight once before.

No, he could not answer Javert’s question, that much was clear. And so, what did he have to fear? They might beat him; he had known that, and worse. They might confine him in the  _ cachot _ —ah, and the dungeons would be hard to bear after so many years of freedom. But had he not borne all of it before?

Valjean would not be the first convict keeping quiet about a hidden treasure, and Javert had no leverage with which to force answers from him.

The door of the hospital fell shut behind them with an ominous boom that echoed through the old building. Before them stretched a dark stair. Once they had made it to the upper floor, they found themselves in an ante-room, where a frail-looking man with sullen eyes and sweat-slick black hair looked up at the disturbance. The coat he wore was stained.

“This is the hospital,” Javert proclaimed.

It was not a question, and Valjean shuddered to be reminded of the years they had both spent here.

The hospital was situated on the upper floor of the largest of the buildings of white stone that lined the harbor. It was cooler inside the building, and Valjean breathed a sigh of relief. He allowed Javert to pull him forward, following quietly until they stood in front of the man, who had now unwillingly pushed an old, tattered ledger aside into which he had been lazily noting down his records.

"His brand is infected. You have some salve for this?" Javert demanded, bearing down upon the man, whose eyes narrowed in annoyance at the interruption.

Even so, the man took a step back from the imposing figure of the Inspector.

"You cannot just barge in here and claim—" he began to sputter.

Javert cut off his protests with an imperious motion. "Show me the salve. Then you may leave."

Enraged, the man straightened—but another look at Javert glowering at him made him swallow his outrage. Sullenly, he opened a drawer and pulled from it a bowl with a greenish concoction that gave off a sharp smell.

"Thank you," Javert said, staring pointedly until the flustered doctor had taken his leave.

Valjean, who had been watching all these happenings silently, still not quite certain what to believe, now found himself alone with Javert in the small, whitewashed room. With his heartbeat echoing in his ears like a drum, he took a step forward when Javert gestured impatiently.

How strange it seemed all of a sudden to find himself here with Javert. Mere weeks ago, Javert had reluctantly lifted his hat in the streets and called him  _ Monsieur _ . Now they were bagnard and convict-guard once more, Valjean clad in his red cassock, Javert in the frock-coat of authority.

"Come here," Javert said, "don't move," and the  _ tu  _ that had come as such a shock there in the basement of that mill was by now bitter familiarity, so that he barely flinched beneath that blow.

Almost, one could forget all the years that had passed since 1815. It had seemed to him then that his life had begun in the bagne—what had come before was no more than a distant dream. Now the years of freedom had also receded from his grasping hands, as quickly as clouds driven away by an approaching storm. Had it truly been eight years? Had he truly lived in that house he had built; had his portress truly brought him coffee in the mornings; had he given toys to the children and walked among the endlessly stretching fields?

No; his life had begun in the bagne, and that was where it would end. This was what he saw in the merciless eyes of Javert. His gaze summed up all that Valjean had been, and all he ever would be: a convict, branded, no longer truly a man. A dog to obey as he was called, and to be beaten when he failed to comply.

Again Javert's hands grasped his blouse. Valjean did not dare to meet his eyes; instead, he focused on the desk where the bowl of salve stood waiting.

What a strange mercy it was to be spared  the curiosity of strangers and the mockery of the guards for today—and by the hands of Javert!

Valjean could not feel gratefulness. He was too exhausted from the heat and the hard day's work. He complied silently with the demands of those large hands; though a tremor ran through him when Javert's fingers deftly opened the buttons of his red coat and then pulled it off together with the linen shirt beneath, baring his chest to Javert's gaze.

"There," Javert murmured, fingers coming to rest on Valjean's arm, close to where the brand was still aching steadily, "there. These fools."

He released Valjean. A moment later, Javert’s touch returned, driving tears into Valjean's eyes as his fingers carefully smeared the green salve onto his charred skin. Valjean breathed against the pain, light-headed and out of his depth. To have Javert here, now, seemed a nightmare. To have Javert touching him, laying his fingers into the scars the state had left on him...

He shuddered, his heart pounding, dull thuds that echoed in his ears. Sweat trickled from his brow, matting his hair. Still he forced himself to bear the familiar touch, gasping for breath as Javert methodically spread salve all over the inflamed letters they had seared into his very soul.

"Thank you," Valjean managed when it was finally done.

Javert barked a short laugh. "I did not do it for your thanks," he said, and then released him.

"Why, then?" Valjean dared to ask. Pain was still throbbing through him, his body trembling with it.

Javert's jaw clenched. "You've been sentenced to labor. Not to death by infection," he said after a moment. "You'll resume your labor once it is healed."

Valjean raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. His knees felt weak—but even so, the salve was cool against his burning skin. It was a small relief, but it was a relief.

"They've sent you all the way to Toulon, Javert?" he murmured in confusion.

"I have told you before, you will address me as Inspector Javert," Javert said impatiently. "And it’s none of your business what the Prefecture decides. I'm here because your flight left us with a few questions I want answered."

"Ah," Valjean said and smiled weakly. "I fear I cannot help you there, Inspector Javert."

"We will see," Javert muttered.

Perhaps those words should have sounded ominous out of the mouth of that forbidding man, but Valjean was now filled with a great calm. Had not the worst thing he had feared already come to pass? Here he stood before Javert, no longer man but once more convict, the  _ TP  _ burning on his soul, the weight of the green cap on his head heavier than those stone caryatids. Shame had swallowed him—but it seemed that even as the bagne was chewing him, a part of him remained, no matter how great his mortification at being exposed to Javert in such a way.

Had he been asked, he might have said that having those who had known him in Montreuil see him in the red cassock, the chain, the brand would be a far greater pain than having the searing iron pressed to tender flesh. But now that greatest disaster had come to pass, and he had lived through it. He had survived even the touch of Javert's fingers on the brand, reaffirming once and for all the roles they were doomed to remain in until the end of their lives: the man clad in blue and the man clad in red, who was in truth barely a man anymore in the eyes of all those who would observe these signs on him.

And yet, even in that deepest moment of despair, a strange clarity had struck Valjean. The worst had already happened: what could come after this? This could be borne, and he would bear it as he bore everything else unkind hands piled on him, clinging to that touch of heaven that could be found even in the ignominy of the bagne. In time, he would find a way to freedom, and he would retrieve the child from the scoundrel of an innkeeper.

Javert was still staring at him. He had taken off his hat once they entered the room, but even though his eyes were no longer hidden in shadow, Valjean could not read the expression in them.

Javert took a sudden step forward. “You’re still pale.”

Valjean almost recoiled when a large, dry hand was pressed to his forehead. His breath escaped him, but Javert did not look at him.

A heartbeat later he was released.

“High, but no fever,” Javert continued, talking to himself as he turned away from Valjean. With quick steps he reached the desk at which the doctor had sat. There stood a bottle; Javert pulled out the cork and sniffed at the opening, then poured the pale liquid into a glass.

“Drink,” Javert said gruffly when he pressed it into his hand.

Valjean’s fingers shook a little as he raised it to his lips. It was wine, thin and sour on his tongue, but welcome in the heat.

Under Javert’s watchful stare, Valjean emptied the glass, his parched throat grateful as he swallowed. He spilled a little; a trickle ran down his chin, dripped onto his chest and ran further downward. There was new humiliation at the sensation.

“There. Now tell me what happened to the six hundred thousand francs you withdrew from Laffitte. You were seen in the Rue d’Artois on the 28th of March, early in the morning. Three days passed until I arrested you. I want to know where you went, and what you did.” Despite the unexpected kindness of the wine, Javert’s voice was curt, his eyes hard.

Still, it hurt less than the shame that drove blood to Valjean’s face as he brushed at his chest, then abandoned the effort, feeling helpless and trapped for a moment in this skin of the convict he had been forced into, and which he could not escape.

“I did nothing,” he said, his voice flat.

They both knew that he was lying. Javert could still choose to have him beaten for the impertinence—but even so, Valjean would not tell him, and they both knew that, too.

Javert clenched his teeth. “At Laffitte, you withdrew your entire fortune. There’s no use denying it.”

Valjean’s hand was still trembling slightly as he placed the glass back down on the desk. “I can’t remember what happened.”

Javert took a step forward. He was so close now that Valjean flinched instinctively at the sensation of the greatcoat brushing against his chest.

“Jean Valjean, you are a thief and a liar,” Javert ground out.

Valjean bent his head, but did not back away. When two hands clenched around his arms with the strength of pincers, he had expected it and did not flinch.

“Where did you go in those three days? Answer me,” Javert demanded furiously. “Another convict reports that he saw you near Montfermeil. Well? Is it the truth? Is it because of the whore’s child?”

“Javert—”

“Inspector Javert!” the man thundered, and now Valjean raised his head.

Javert’s eyes were dark and filled by fury. His lips had pulled back to reveal his teeth. Valjean shuddered to behold that tiger’s smile, trapped as he was, but even so he knew that there was no use raising a hand against the man, that any protest would lead to further punishment and lower his chances of escape.

“Come now, Valjean. You talked willingly enough when your friend had you bound in that mill. Did I not hear you offering him money?”

Again Valjean remained silent. His heart was pounding. Cold drops of sweat ran down his back. What could he say? There was nothing he had to offer Javert.

“No, no,” Javert then muttered. “That was wrong, too. Already then you were not playing by the rules. Why all that fight, eh, Valjean? Mere greed? You did not want to share? Then why not kill that old convict? You could have done it yourself; yes, I wager even in those chains you could have still done it. And then, you were free! You were free yet you didn’t run. Why return to Montreuil and wait for me?”

Valjean took a deep breath. It was still too hot. The brand pulsed relentlessly, although the pain was dulled a little by the salve and the cool wine in his stomach.

“I’ll tell you why if you answer a question in turn,” he spoke, light-headed.

Javert was so close that with every breath he exhaled, warm air moved across Valjean’s face. Valjean could not help but think of a hare trapped before the open jaw of a wolf. Still he felt no fear.

“I left the priest some money for the burial of Fantine, and to use for the poor of the town as he saw fit. Tell me, did Fantine receive her burial?”

“Come, now, what sort of question is that?” Javert asked irritably. “Was she your concubine in truth then? I should have known it. What do I care where the priest buries a whore? She was buried with the others of her kind, and that’s quite enough of this nonsense from you.”

Valjean released a deep breath. He lowered his head, the weight on his back heavier than before when he thought of the pauper’s grave, that unmarked corner of the cemetery, Fantine abandoned in death as she had been in life.

“I did her a great wrong, but not of that kind,” he said tiredly. “I let my superintendent turn her out. It was my oversight that flung her into misery. But very well, Inspector Javert, I will keep my deal. I did not fight because I did not want to harm Richelot. The whip is an easier burden than the conscience. And then, when I had returned and found that with the morning’s post, someone had placed that letter from the Prefecture among my mail by mistake… How could I run when I knew that without me captured and recognized as Jean Valjean, that man Champmathieu would suffer in my place?”

Again Javert laughed in disbelief, the sound hoarse and frightening with the fury it contained.

“And do you dare to lie to me still,” he said slowly, voice trembling, “do you expect me to believe that you, Jean Valjean, that you would…”

He broke off. Confusion and rage had twisted his face into a terrible mask. He moved even closer, his arms coming up until his hands had taken hold of Valjean’s shoulders once more.

Javert’s teeth were still bared. His eyes were filled with a supernatural light, the anger of Cerberus foiled by his prey. His fingers gripped roughly, and then they harshly turned Valjean around, pushed him against the wall where Valjean remained, frightened, his breath loud in the silence of the room.

Behind him, Javert stood, his breathing just as labored. For a long moment, all was quiet.

Then Javert’s hand came to rest between his shoulder blades. It shook slightly before it spread out, trailing downwards. Javert was still breathing heavily. It was the only sound in the room as his fingertips found the grooves of old scars, tracing them with slow precision, as if he were trying to commit a map to his memory.

Valjean trembled at the touch. Had he thought the exposition after the trial a terrible experience, had he felt humiliation when he was roughly stripped and searched by convict-guards, it was yet nothing compared to the shudder that ran through him now. Javert, that terrible guard-dog, had him trapped, with all the shame of his marked and beaten body at his pleasure.

Another tear ran from Valjean’s eyes as he pressed himself to the wall while Javert’s fingers were laid into his scars. Valjean could not say how long it went on. Eventually, he found himself pulled around.

Javert did not speak, although he was close enough that Valjean could feel his breath on his lips. Frozen with fear and a helpless surrender to the strange terror of it all, Valjean waited, his chest heaving. Had now come the time when Javert’s jaws would close around his throat, when this hunt would finally come to an end, when Javert would reveal to his prisoner what the true purpose of those terrifying touches had been—?

With a cry of rage, Javert tore himself away, flinging himself back from Valjean as though his skin had seared him.

As Valjean watched, Javert stopped, standing petrified with one hand raised as he stared at it. Inexplicably, there was blood on Javert’s hand.

For one long moment, their eyes met. Javert’s pupils were wide, his nostrils flared. Then, at last Valjean became aware of a bottle of red wine which stood on the window sill, and which by chance had reflected the light so as to dye Javert’s skin crimson with its rays.

Javert’s hand sunk down. He was still breathing heavily, but the spell that seemed to have taken hold of him was broken.

Again Javert barked out a short laugh.

“Madness,” he muttered, “madness, all of this, I should have known.”

Valjean watched, too exhausted for fear as Javert approached again. He flinched when Javert’s hand touched his forehead. The touch lasted only for a heartbeat, and then he was released.

“You’re feverish after all,” Javert said. “Well, it makes no difference. Good God, why should it? We know the rogue has never spoken the truth before!”

Valjean kept quiet. What was there to say? He could not tell Javert the truth about the money hidden near Montfermeil. He had spoken the truth about all other matters, but he knew that these had little worth to Javert or the state.

Again Javert’s eyes focused on him. There was a strange darkness in them, an ever-shifting thing that made Valjean shudder to behold it: a maelstrom of emotion that terrified him and yet seemed strangely familiar.

Valjean took a deep breath. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. His skin was clammy with sweat; the brand pulsed with remorseless pain, every throb of his heart a repeat of the press of the searing iron. 

It seemed to him all of a sudden that he beheld a man on a precipice, looking down into an immeasurable abyss; that he only needed to stretch out his arm to pull the man back or push him into the vortex below; that here, in this sweltering hospital, they suddenly found themselves balanced on the point of a knife, two men pushed together by fate although by all the laws of nature they should repulse each other like the poles of magnets…

Slowly, Valjean raised his hand. It hung between them, an old, withered thing marked by hard labor and cruelty, trembling now despite his strength as he reached out for something invisible he could not even give a name to.

Javert stared at it. For a long moment, he did not move. Valjean thought that he could hear the sound of his heartbeat: rapid, frightened, a wolf driven into a corner at last.

Then something seemed to shift. Outside, a cloud moved before the sun. For a moment, a shadow fell upon the room. In the window, the wine bottle no longer traced a red reflection onto the wall.

Javert took a step back. His eyes shuttered. “You are sick. Stay here. I will go and retrieve that blackguard of a doctor,” he said, and then he turned and left.

Several moments later, the cloud moved again. Light fell in once more through the window where Valjean still stood with his hand outstretched, illuminated by golden light. Before him, the shadow of the window grate arose: a cross of leaden darkness. Valjean watched as it slowly moved across the wall, remaining still before the heavy weight of it until finally, the doctor returned.

**Author's Note:**

> The name of Richelot was stolen from Vidocq, though these are not intended to be the same characters. (Though who knows? Those ex-convicts certainly seem to get around a lot! :D)
> 
> I also owe Vidocq much of the inspiration for this, as it seems there used to be an escaped galley-slave at every corner just waiting to blackmail former friends. Clearly Madeleine with his incredible riches would be an excellent target for that!
> 
> We [don't know for certain](http://prudencepaccard.tumblr.com/post/49337015477/i-have-another-question-even-though-i-have-one-in) whether Valjean was branded during his second time in Toulon, but frankly, for this story I liked the symbolism of it.


End file.
